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Libertad! posted:Good, but not as good as a true spellcaster with Cure Wounds and the like. It can allow allies to spend Hit Dice to heal in the middle of combat rather than during a rest, which is probably the best means of healing and costs no action on the ally's part, unlike using an action to drink a potion. But it does not act as a supplement to existing features like spells do. It also cannot cure as wide a variety of conditions beyond frightened. Compare this to a cleric's ability to cure curses, paralysis, and various other maladies. Very good, then. Healing Word is often the most optimal choice, as healing is usually done once a character is downed in 5E. So long as the hit dice healing ability can be used while unconscious, it would work just as well and on average with a larger resource pool for it too.
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May 2, 2020 05:15
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Clarification. It's more restrictive than I thought. Said allies have to hear you, and it's done as a 1 minute long inspiring speech. So not the middle of combat like I thought. Apologies for any confusion.Rouse the Troops Class Feature posted:At 10th level, you can spend 1 minute speaking words of encouragement and support to help your companions shake off fatigue and injury.
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May 2, 2020 05:46
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I've really been enjoying the Night's Black Agents Solo Ops review and decided to pick it up from the Bundle of Holding. After reading through the mechanical stuff and one adventure, it seems very dependent on pre-written adventures and having access to a printer for the multitude of cards you need. Imagine a PBTA game where every non-investigation scene is resolved through a custom move and you'd be close to how it's set up. As an improv-heavy GM, I can't ever imagine running it when you're expected to have a TON of stuff ready to hand over to the player and an entire adventure prepared in advance.
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May 2, 2020 06:37
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The Lone Badger posted:You can make steel with a bloomery and a shitload of work. The quality tends to be pretty variable but small-scale production is possible. Speaking as the resident Border Princes ExpertTM, local BP steel probably shades more towards Wood Elf-level in quality and definitely in quantity. Society is just too unstable to get good iron where it needs to go or allow smiths to develop a metallurgy tradition like even the Bretonnians have (see: making gently caress-off plate mail). I mean, they do have local foundries and such and they do produce usable steel, but there's no real way for them to preserve knowledge/boost production/assemble the kind of professional culture most other societies have. Mostly they use local iron and imported steel and just hope for the best.
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May 2, 2020 07:09
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In the TT game, Brets can't even make actual full plate and are still using transitional armors like a coat of plates, hence only having Heavy instead of actual Plate armor. WHFRP gives them full plate like anyone else but claims the flavoring is more primitive, but it's actually a thing in Hams that Imperial metallurgy and armor-craft is extremely good because they're buddies with the dwarfs and one of the economic superpowers of the world. A young knight like Gilbert coming back with actual Imperial armor would be kind of a great get for his Errantry tour.
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May 2, 2020 07:29
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BinaryDoubts posted:I've really been enjoying the Night's Black Agents Solo Ops review and decided to pick it up from the Bundle of Holding. After reading through the mechanical stuff and one adventure, it seems very dependent on pre-written adventures and having access to a printer for the multitude of cards you need. Imagine a PBTA game where every non-investigation scene is resolved through a custom move and you'd be close to how it's set up. As an improv-heavy GM, I can't ever imagine running it when you're expected to have a TON of stuff ready to hand over to the player and an entire adventure prepared in advance. Thing is, it's not actually hard to improv this game. I mean, coming up with a challenge on the fly isn't really any more work-intensive than establishing the stakes of an action roll in Blades in the Dark, for example. You're just coming up with a good, great, and bad outcome, and maybe an idea for an extra problem the player could take on in exchange for a bonus die. Cards are just as easy to quickly scribble out on an index card as they are to have a full deck of stuff ready beforehand--inprov-heavy games like Fate, Apocalypse World, and Blades again all assume that you'll be jotting down aspects or clocks or what have you in the moment, and that's really all Problems and Edges are. Even the investigation part can be pretty seat of the pants as long as you have a good idea of what the conspiracy is up to and keep in mind that every scene should give the player a clue toward that. It's just that, aside from one side bar that will get to a little later in the GM section, the boat just assume that you're going to be doing traditional Adventure write-ups and really doesn't talk about the fact that it's actually very easy to run by the seat of your pants. It's kind of a weird blind spot, especially given how much influence it clearly takes from "play to find out" systems.
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May 2, 2020 08:34
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Selachian posted:As mentioned in the last post, getting in a fight usually requires you to pay a Toll in general ability points if you win. If you lose, however, you'll be taking injury cards. Each enemy has a major and minor injury card listed in its description. There is also an extensive list of Hazards, which require the player to roll a test, usually Athletics or Health for physical Hazards, or Composure for mental hazards, to avoid having to take an Injury (physical) or shock (mental/emotional) card. Failing a Hazard test by 1 gives you a minor injury/shock card, and failing by 2 or more gives you a major card. Laws warns against setting up situations where the player gets a minor injury on success and a major injury on failure -- even having one card can be a big deal. So far I'm liking the system for Yellow King, the fact that it appears to move pretty quickly is something that I really like in its favor and the minor/major cards for conditions and injuries is a cool idea, but I'm not too sure about having to make minor/major conditions for each negative outcome. You said there's around 100 of them so that sounds pretty comprehensive.
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May 2, 2020 09:37
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Night10194 posted:In the TT game, Brets can't even make actual full plate and are still using transitional armors like a coat of plates, hence only having Heavy instead of actual Plate armor. WHFRP gives them full plate like anyone else but claims the flavoring is more primitive, but it's actually a thing in Hams that Imperial metallurgy and armor-craft is extremely good because they're buddies with the dwarfs and one of the economic superpowers of the world. A young knight like Gilbert coming back with actual Imperial armor would be kind of a great get for his Errantry tour. My take on this is that all Bret 'full plate' genuinely is imported from the Empire or dwarves, they're just Brets so like hell they're going to admit it. And/or the merchants selling it to the nobles claim it's totally made right here in Bretonnia and the nobles don't question it.
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May 2, 2020 12:38
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I am definitely interested in Solo Ops. I like one-on-ones as it is, and I am always into hunting down actual draculas. Dracula as a superspy's villain is a good idea.
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May 2, 2020 13:46
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Night10194 posted:I am definitely interested in Solo Ops. I like one-on-ones as it is, and I am always into hunting down actual draculas. Dracula as a superspy's villain is a good idea. I'm not sure I'm quite masochistic enough to run Leyla Khan through a Solo Ops version of The Dracula Dossier after I finish the core book... but I'm also not not sure about it. Cythereal posted:My take on this is that all Bret 'full plate' genuinely is imported from the Empire or dwarves, they're just Brets so like hell they're going to admit it. And/or the merchants selling it to the nobles claim it's totally made right here in Bretonnia and the nobles don't question it. I mean, everyone knows it's forbidden to lie to your betters, so what would even be the point of asking? It was said by a peasant to a knight so of course it's true. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 14:54 on May 2, 2020 |
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May 2, 2020 14:51
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Ithle01 posted:So far I'm liking the system for Yellow King, the fact that it appears to move pretty quickly is something that I really like in its favor and the minor/major cards for conditions and injuries is a cool idea, but I'm not too sure about having to make minor/major conditions for each negative outcome. You said there's around 100 of them so that sounds pretty comprehensive. Sure, there are a lot of cards to pick from -- there are about 100 shock and 100 injury cards, taking up almost 40 pages in the back of the book. Even if you're using an enemy or hazard that's not listed in the book, there are plenty of cards that cover being shot, stabbed, punched, clubbed, clawed, bitten, poisoned, set on fire, strangled, drowned, magically aged, having a heavy thing dropped on you, bombed, and more. On the shock side, there are cards for multiple flavors of being afraid, guilty, humiliated, hypnotized, despairing, unsure of objective reality, numbed, cursed, enraged, and various mental afflictions caused by getting too close to the Yellow Sign, reading The King in Yellow, or encountering Carcosan entities. Having to assign cards for a particular situation on the fly can be a bit of a pain, but looking for something comparable on the enemies and hazards list makes it easier. The fourth YKRPG book, This Is Normal Now, also includes a chapter on creating your own cards.  The game rules take up about 70 pages of the 240-page Paris book. The next section of the book, another 67 pages, includes: * a guide to starting your first episode * a history of Paris in the 19th century, from the Napoleonic era through the “present day” of 1895 * descriptions of neighborhoods in Paris – the PCs, as poor art students, live in the Latin Quarter – and locations in Paris, both fictional and real, for them to visit. * A list of people, also both fictional and real, with descriptions and their dates and ages in 1895, who the PCs might bump into. This includes prominent artists like Degas, Cassatt, and Gauguin, musicians like Debussy and Satie, and authors and poets like Proust, Verlaine, and Mallarmé, as well as a wide variety of cultists, occult investigators, criminals, spies, detectives, and more, with notes on how they might fit into your PCs' adventures as patrons, victims, or helpers. Next comes a discussion of who, and what, the King in Yellow might be. Laws's version of the Yellow King is based entirely on Chambers's work, without involving HPL or August Derleth's later additions, particularly Derleth's identification of the King with Lovecraft's Hastur. The only details we get on the King in Chambers's stories are snippets from unreliable, and often insane, narrators. We know the King dwells in Carcosa, a place with white skies and black stars, near the mist-covered Lake of Hali, perhaps somewhere near Aldebaran or the Hyades. He has two daughters, Cassilda and Camilla, who may be allied or opposed to him -- in the fragments of The King in Yellow that Chambers quotes, they often seem terrified of him. And the King goes masked and cloaked, although what others think is a mask may actually be his real face. On Earth, people learn about him from The King in Yellow, a play that -- like similar Lovecraftian books -- provides forbidden knowledge while destroying the sanity of those who read it. The King may have cultists or followers on Earth, who use the unnerving Yellow Sign to identify themselves. Based on this, Laws offers a variety of possible interpretations for your campaign. Perhaps Carcosa and the King really exist on a faraway world or dimension and are trying to invade our world; perhaps they're a lost ancient civilization; perhaps they're fantasies created by a mad writer that are somehow becoming real; or perhaps it's all some sort of bizarre meme that contaminates minds, making people imagine things that aren't there. Following this is a listing of possible enemies for the PCs to fight, including their difficulty, the toll they can inflict, and the injury/shock effects they can have. This includes mundane enemies (dogs, angry peasants, gendarmes), creatures based on French folklore (ankou, nain), standard pulpy horror opponents (mad scientists, vampires, cannibals, beings made from sewn-together corpses), and things from Carcosa (including the King himself). Here's a typical enemy listing:  Finally, Paris concludes with a sample adventure, “Ghost of the Garnier,” which Laws describes as a “Carcosan spin on The Phantom of the Opera.” The PCs learn of a new play, Cassilda, being produced, that seems to be based on The King in Yellow. As they investigate, they discover a sinister masked figure lurking around the theater who seems to have an unusual interest in the young singer who is starring in the play. (And yes, there is a chance the PCs may get a chandelier dropped on them during their investigations.) Selachian fucked around with this message at 20:02 on May 2, 2020 |
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May 2, 2020 17:48
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Cythereal posted:My take on this is that all Bret 'full plate' genuinely is imported from the Empire or dwarves, they're just Brets so like hell they're going to admit it. And/or the merchants selling it to the nobles claim it's totally made right here in Bretonnia and the nobles don't question it. Brets probably can't even supply people with munitions armour, there must be an enormous armour gap between the poorest knights and the richest.
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May 2, 2020 18:42
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The poorest knights are wearing their grandfathers armour, refitted and maintained but extremely unfashionable.
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May 2, 2020 23:33
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 Rite Publishing was one of the oldest and most prolific of 3rd party Pathfinder publishers in terms of the sheer volume of content. The company did not restrict itself to that one system and made OGL material for many other games which permitted such a license. In the Company of Dragons was one of its most popular products for making in-depth rules for dragon PCs in Pathfinder, and a conversion to 5th Edition was in the works almost as soon as said system got a proper OGL. In the Company of Dragons is initially written from an in-character perspective by a dragon by the name Thunders in Defiance, offering his knowledge of dragon society to the reader as payment for said reader saving his young from an undefined danger. This book’s fluff presents a specific setting for dragons a la Council of Wyrms. There’s a separate plane of existence home to a chain of islands known as the Lost Isles forged by Our Lady of the Rainbow Scales, a deific figure in draconic culture. A cancerlike magical taint was formed from uncertain origin and contained in the Well of Oblivion, where dark mockeries known as undragons spawn from and threaten the rest of their kind. This book’s dragons are known as taninim, who are a distinct species from true dragons. They are primarily differentiated by their plane of birth: an egg which hatches on the Lost Isles becomes a taninim baby, while anywhere outside it becomes a true dragon wyrmling. In terms of thematics there’s not really any difference: both can fly, breathe lines or cones of harmful energy, grow large, and so on. The major difference is that taninim are not forever locked into a single alignment. Taninim dragons are divided into three major groups: the Organizers, or Lung dragons tasked with watching over the world at the behest of spirits; the Feykin, small dragons who have butterfly wings and claim to be spawned from dreams; and Truescale taninim of whom the writer belongs and are the prototypical European-style dragons. On a metagame level I feel that in the Pathfinder era the taninim distinction was meant to explain how dragon PCs lacked many of the more powerful features of the monster type. But in 5th Edition, where the rules for building PCs and NPCs are completely different even for the same race, this seems a bit unnecessary. Taninim society is a feudal gerontocracy, where older dragons capable of holding the most land grant rights to less powerful dragons to live upon said land in exchange for service. The Elder Voices are a council of the five oldest dragons who only converge in times of crisis that affect the race as a whole. The creation of children and egg-laying has religious significance, where parents undergo magical rites to ensure the safe growth of their offspring. Like true dragons their moral outlook has an effect on the physical make-up of their bodies, but unlike true dragons they are capable of changing their ethical outlook much as any human who undergoes a moral or philosophical re-examination. This causes taninim to be more guarded from their peers when they sense disillusionment with an ideology, and true dragons find taninim to be a bit disconcerting. Finally, taninim names are varied but gained in three major ways: a hatchling name chosen by their parents, a deed name granted by the Elder Voices for some service, and a personally-chosen name. Tananim do not view names as an inherent part of one’s nature, and a dragon viewed as unworthy by the community or a rival of said name can be challenged for it much like a duel. Taninim Race Taninim are a race all their own with 3 subraces from which to choose. They can take classes like anyone else, but also have a Draconic Exemplar class unique to their race which emphasizes the stereotypical dragon traits. Base taninim...don’t have much. In terms of advantageous traits they gain +1 to Constitution and Charisma, have darkvision, a natural bite attack, and proficiency in Insight and Perception. All base taninim can create lairs and hoards, the former granting an effective line of sight to all creatures within said lair regardless of cover, invisibility, or other conditions, while the latter grants advantage on saving throws and +1 AC if the tananim keeps a number of valuables equal to 1,000 gp times their level within said lair for a month. Their (non-dangerous) foreclaws are manipulative enough to be as nimble as human hands, but that’s where the positives end. They are quadrupedal, meaning that they are limited in what kinds of equipment they can wear, all armor is more expensive, and they are never proficient with shields. And finally, you are a Small sized dragon: if you want to grow in size categories, you’ll either need to take appropriate feats or level up in Draconic Exemplar. The three subraces are rather different in what kinds of boons they can give. Truescale gains +1 Strength and Wisdom, a true flight speed of 30 feet, along with a natural tail attack and a 1/long rest AoE air buffet wing attack. Lung dragons gain +2 Strength, a 40 feet speed in walking and climbing, +1 AC, natural claw attacks, and 1d10 bonus piercing damage to foes engaged in a grapple. Finally, the Feykin are Tiny size, have +2 Dexterity,a flight speed of 30 feet, elf-like resistances to charm and sleep effects, a sorcerer cantrip of their choice, and their size category can never change either short-term or permanently from any source. In terms of the subraces, the Truescale is the most attractive one in terms of being a big honkin’ dragon. It has flight and unlike the feykin is optimized for melee combat. The Lung’s climbing ability is overall inferior to flight, and its natural claws deal less damage than the truescale’s tail attack and unlike said tail does not have reach. I can’t really see the Feykin as being appealing to most who’d buy this book save for one-off gimmicks, as there are already options for playing small fairy-like beings also from the same publisher. Tananim also get 3 new subclasses exclusive to their race: the Scaled Juggernaut’s a fighter subclass which grants increased bonuses to attack and damage rolls with claws, treat said claws as magical at 7th level, resistance to fire and cold damage, proficiency in all saving throws, and can Dash and knock an enemy prone with a claw attack. Its 18th level capstone is a Cleave-style ability which allows them to move their speed and make a claw attack for free for every foe they drop to 0 hit points to a maximum of 3 times per short rest. There’s also a new Fighting Style for base Fighters where a tananim gains +1 AC and 1d8 claw attacks or increased damage if they had them already, making the Lung even less appealing. The other subclass is the White Worm Apostate domain for Clerics, which marks your character as an undragon pledged to the service of the god-like White Worm as your scales become infested with mold and worms. It grants bonus spells related to sickness, madness, and weakness, and its other class features include immunity to disease, using Channel Divinity to reduce the damage from any attack to 0 as a reaction, vomiting a swarm of worms which are treated as their own monsters who can gain hit points and attack/damage bonuses as you increase in level, and a 17th level capstone where 1/day you can spend a reaction to revive to full hit points with 1 level of exhaustion whenever you fail a death saving throw. The Trueblood is a Sorcerer origin who represents the innate magical might of all dragons. They gain a draconic essence* which effectively grants them a breath weapon of scaling damage (max 6d6) in exchange for a moral compulsion, the ability to treat their own body as an arcane focus and not consume material components save on a natural 1 on a unique d20 roll, and at later levels gain more uses with their breath weapon between short rests and bonus essences. The 18th level capstone grants the ability to use a breath weapon as a bonus action for 3 sorcery points. *described in the Draconic Exemplar class below. The Scaled Juggernaut’s a bit of a one-trick pony, although proficiency in all saving throws is very nice. The White Worm Apostate has great defensive options, while the Trueblood is a bit overly-focused on breath weapons which makes it lack the versatile oomph of other sorcerer types. The ability to almost never need to worry about consuming material components is pretty nice, though.  But forget about those measly options. Do any of them help us grow into a mean, lean, greater-than-Small fighting machine? Well the Draconic Exemplar is the answer to all your woes! This class is heavily martial but with a few utility abilities: it has an impressive d12 Hit Die, is proficient in Strength and Intelligence saving throws, and chooses 3 skills from mostly-cerebral options: Arcana, Athletics, History, Insight [even though the race is already proficient], Intimidation, Nature, Persuasion, and Survival. The class has absolutely no proficiencies in any weapons, armor, tools, and doesn’t even start with any gold or equipment. But you don’t care because you’re a motherfucking dragon. When’s the last time you’ve seen Smaug wield a sword like a toothpick? A Draconic Exemplar has a natural bite and claw attack whose damage dice and natural reach increase as they gain size categories: both attacks start out at a respectable 1d6, but at Gargantuan they are a mighty fine 2d10 and 1d12 respectively. You’re also proficient in them, and to make up for the lack of armor you add both your Dexterity and Constitution modifiers to the base 10 AC. At 1st level the class has two important choices: a Draconic Gift and a Draconic Essence. The Gift determines the dragon’s preferred tactics: Gift of the Behemoth is all about strength, and includes options such as knocking people prone or flinging them into the air with natural attacks, immunity to the frightened condition, restoring hit points via sheer grit, and barreling through multiple opponents with a charge. Gift of the Ancients emphasizes one’s elemental nature, granting bonus energy damage to natural weapons, emitting a damaging energy field which also restores the dragon’s hit points, and can reflect magical spells back on the caster. The Gift of the Third Eye embeds a magical pearl in the dragon’s forehead, which gives them increased mental control over targets ranging from charm effects to mental suggestions and even damage just by glaring really hard. Even the magical and subtle abilities of the last gift add the Strength modifier to the DC, meaning that you can totally charm a target with your incredible reptilian pecs. A Draconic Essence determines the specifics of the dragon’s scale color, breath weapons (which is a static 2d6), and a matching energy resistance based upon said breath weapon. There’s quite a lot representing existing true dragon clans, but each comes with a Compulsion that forces you to make a Wisdom saving throw when one acts against the nature of their Essence. Not all Compulsions are equal, and some are more deleterious to the typical party than others. For instance, the Balance compulsion forces a save whenever the dragon tries to commit an overtly good or evil deed, meaning that they may very well end up standing around doing nothing when the evil overlord’s army invades a city and is engaged in combat with their fellow PCs. Meanwhile, the Just compulsion forces a save whenever they’d commit an unjust action or allow one to happen without intervening, which isn’t very much different than how many good-aligned PCsoperate. Draconic Exemplars also permanently grow one size category every 5 levels, to a maximum of Gargantuan at 20th. Feykin do not benefit from this but instead gain the ability to cast a new specific illusion spell (or Sleep at 5th) 1/day each every time they’d grow. The text explicitly calls out that size increases your weight and melee attack reach, but leaves the damage dice of your natural weapons unmentioned which implies that Feykin can still do some good damage even if they’re Tiny. But if you wanted to be optimized for melee, you’d be a Truescale or Lung who have Strength bonuses, and the bonus spells aren’t enough to make the Feykin on par with a Bard, Rogue, or illusionist Wizard. For those times when going around as a dragon is too unsubtle, draconic exemplars can transform into a single identity of a humanoid form at 3rd level. They cannot use most of their form-specific class features while in this form, and given that the class has no real spells or weapon/armor proficiencies so one cannot really do much in said form. At 5th level onwards the majority of their class features are combat-related: extra attacks at 5th and 14th level, advantage on initiative rolls and immunity to surprise attacks at 7th, counting natural weapons as magical at 9th, an AoE belly-flop at 13th, and at 18th an AoE roar which can frighten and deafen all targets in a cone. Existing Class Comparisons: As a class the Draconic Exemplar is good at one thing: doing dragon things in combat. More utility features such as Gift of the Third Eye and the Feykin’s spells can be better accomplished by casting classes who have far more choices on top of that. But when it comes to wreaking havoc the Draconic Exemplar kicks rear end. Only the Fighter gets more Extra Attacks, but the Exemplar has higher damage dice and reach on said attacks, while also being able to impose additional conditions with the right Gift and gains limited-use AoE attacks with their breath weapon, roar, and belly-flop. In comparison to the Barbarian the Exemplar has some similarities (hit dice, Con modifier to AC, advantage on initiative, etc) but in terms of superiority the barbarian can do better in terms of raw staying power from raging and Strength rolls at higher levels. In terms of damage in melee combat, a dragon’s bite as Large (2d6) catches up with a 1d12 greataxe, and the bonus extra attack at 14th level can outdamage the barbarian in most cases barring Brutal Criticals. Making one’s natural weapons count as magical is a good idea, given that there’s quite a bit of enemies in the Monster Manual which are either resistant or immune. In most cases they are extraplanar entities. It still doesn’t solve the problem of silver/adamantine/etc defenses, but is a step in the right direction. The final section of the book are 12 new Taninim Feats, which as usual are specific to their race. 3 of them relate to enhancing one’s breath weapon, such as imposing disadvantage on ability checks of the dragon’s choice to those caught within the line/cone, the ability to breath twice in two different directions as part of the same action, and the ability to reshape one’s breath weapon and avoid friendly fire for up to 2 targets. 3 more feats relate to biting, such as giving the incapacitated condition on a critical hit for 1 round, the ability to swallow a small enough target whole and deal acid damage to those inside,* and the ability to behead a creature on a critical hit which can kill a target provided they need said head to live and aren’t a boss monster (aka have legendary actions).** Two of the feats raise the dragon’s size category by 1*** as well as granting +1 to an ability score of their choice, while the remaining feats are miscellaneous effects. Complex Essence grants a bonus draconic essence which can make your scale colors dual or mixed colors in addition to choosing from 2 kinds of breath weapons; Dreaded Presence grants +1 Charisma, can make your voice up to three times louder, and gain advantage on all Intimidation checks. Flyby Attack allows you to avoid opportunity attacks provided you use your movement to fly out of a creature’s reach. Finally Greater Crush increases the damage of a belly-flop from 3d8 to 5d8 and deals half damage on a failed save rather than no damage. *but an unfinished sentence on how to escape and said attempt’s DC. **in which case it adds 6d8 bonus damage in addition to the critical hit effects. ***can’t be taken as a Draconic Exemplar. The feats centered around breath weapons are both useful and cool, although the bite-based feats are more situational. Flyby Attack is great as it allows for reliable hit and run tactics. I am a bit mum on the size category increasing ones. Although the +1 to an ability score each time prevents it from being too much of a tax, you can only grow to a maximum of Large size and the only benefits greater-than-Medium categories grant in 5th Edition are increased reach. Meaning that you’re making a long-term investment to hit up to 10 feet away (15 if Truescale with tail) with your natural weapons, which a human Fighter with a reach weapon can effectively do without any feat expenditures. Final Thoughts: In the Company of Dragons is an okay book. The sample race on its own is not exactly impressive in terms of delivering on the “be a badass dragon” angle, and given their similarities in roles and styles I cannot see any player picking a Scaled Juggernaut Fighter over a Draconic Exemplar. The truescale subrace is way too appealing an option in comparison to the others. The product’s new class is the star of the show, and it provides both a simple yet effective 20 level class. The Draconic Exemplar’s major weaknesses are that there’s not much it can do outside of combat, but the same can easily be said of the Barbarian and Fighter. The breath weapon is a bit weak at a static 2d6, and only a Trueblood Sorcerer increases its base value. As it is a once per short rest ability, I’d personally make it scale like the Sorcerer archetype given that said class already has a bunch of damage-increasing blasty spell options while the Draconic Exemplar doesn’t. The discussion of taninim society feels a bit tacked on, and is actually cribbed from the much larger Pathfinder supplement. The fluff on the Council of Wyrms-flavored setting cannot help but make one feel that the word space could’ve been given over to further development on mechanics. I imagine that most players aren’t going to care about the differences from “true dragons,” and given how many settings handle the nature and culture of dragons differently the race and class are good enough as-is for a settingless Dragon PC option. Join us next time as we teleport around in the air like we just don’t care with the Mist Walker!
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May 3, 2020 00:18
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 Heart: The City Beneath 10 - Landmarks, Tiers 2 Pressing on with the rest of the 'normal' sample Landmarks; the deeper reaches of City Below. This deep into the Heart, things start to get very strange indeed. Travelling takes longer - a day or two between Landmarks, and much more dangerous, and the landscape tends to shift and warp behind your back. People still live this deep, as long as you broaden your definition of 'people' and 'live'. Avulse is a rare thing, a Cleaver community formed around the remnants of one of their number who killed a Butcher (someone who's eaten too much of the Heart's substance) and become part of the landscape, feeding his new acolytes from his own flesh. They're not immediately hostile, but it's not really somewhere you'd visit without a very good reason. In Ghorryn a cabal of magi, rumour-mongers and 'scientists' are trying to solve the mystery of the Heart itself, under the eye of a serveral-centuries-old human researcher. The truth is he already figured it out long ago, but the revelation so shook his sanity that the memory of it is lost, locked away in his head. Everyone else in Ghorryn is really a construct, created from his research notes by the Heart in an attempt to make him happier. Grin Station was to be a tourist destination, an immense, improbable theme park deep in the bowels of the Heart. It's derelict now, but some of the exhibits show a distressing tendency to re-grow and regenerate in very odd ways. The home of the Witches of the Heart, Hallow is one of the more hospitable places in this Tier. The witches plot and scheme against each other; outsiders are tolerated, but might end up in the thick of things, especially if one Witch, then another shift to their true forms - they tend to set each other off in a kind of horrible chain reaction. Hang Station is suspended by rusting, creaking cables over an immense artificial lake; the home of some unknown leviathan the Aelfir shipped from the far north for their entertainment. It's not too strange in itself, but the general level of decay makes for a dangerous time navigating the observation decks and balconies of the derelict station. The Harvest Bazaar is a marketplace of ephemera; memories, skills and personalities are bought and sold here, traded by the cultists, pitchkin and sundry zealots who make their home here. It's pretty safe, but the more you deal here, the more it drains your positive traits and talents. Highrise is a great sea of tower-blocks, each twenty stories or more of grey stone, but only the upper floors and roof-tops show signs of habitation; lower down is filled with a sea of hungry ghosts. The inhabitants, largely death-cultists, sacrifice the bodies of the dead to the ghosts below, throwing the dead (and sometimes the living) from the roof-tops wreathed in charms and the feathers of the albino crows that flock here. There are predatory buildings in the City Below, which move around and actively hunt out prey. The Hoard is one such building, a wandering library that seeks out books and knowledge, feeding the maggot-like dragon-larva that dreams at its heart. Visits are discouraged - you're likely to end up as one of the wyrm's mind-controlled librarian pawns. Some such predatory sites are ambush hunters instead. The Last Orders looks like a pretty run-of-the-mill pub if you were in the City Above; in the Heart it's positively an oasis. But have one too many drinks and maybe when you head up to a room, or dissapear to take a leak the stairs will crumble beneath you, leaving you broken in the basement, to be slowly digested by the pub itself. The Machines of Dust are a shrine to the Hungry Deep, a nameless god of decay and entropy. Living beings are (voluntarily?) strapped to an ancient obelisk - the cultists here claim that they are responsible for the Heart's existence, and are the ones stopping it spreading even further. Correct or not, staying around the Machines is decidedly unhealthy. The Red Market is the home of the warring sects dedicated to Incarne, goddess of predatory capitalism. The Incarnadines in their fortress-towers oversee a great expanse of crimson market stalls, where mostly anything can be bought or sold. The fifth shrine to the Moon Beneath, the Temple of Grace is a place of worship for Lombre, the dark side of the moon. The Temple is a maze of non-lethal traps - they maim and wound, but never kill - which initiates must walk blindfolded, again and again until they can pass through without harm. Swinefall is the abbatoir of the Heart; countless sluices and hanging hooks, haunted by a court of pig spirits who may be bribed with offerings of food scraps to let travellers pass. The Trypogenesis Chamber is the great fortress-machine of the Deep Apiarists; the gateway to their Hive, the extra-dimensional megaconsciousness that fights the chaos of the Heart. Friendly travellers can find some sanctuary here, but if the Landmark is attacked, countless Apiarists will give their lives to defend it. Finally Well Station was intended by the Aelfir to serve as a model community for their Drow underlings. It's normal enough, but everything here is the same - every paving slab is cracked in the same place, every sign shows the same gibberish, and every street that leads from the station has the same buildings, pubs, and bars. Next: Tier 3
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May 3, 2020 00:30
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Zereth posted:Is there any reason an actual player would ever want to do this instead of going up tiers as soon as possible? This probably got answered, but sure. Go through a few first tier career is a fairly easy way to pick up some useful skills and talents. It can also set you up to have an easier entrance into certain other advanced career. Hell, the Elf in this recent part left Kithband warrior and went into Hunter instead of Scout or something because Hunter gives him a few wilderness skills and then exits directly into Targeter so the Elf can become the Super Sniper.
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May 3, 2020 01:26
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The issue is despite them going only through 3 low level careers they're considered "equal" to a character going through a first level career and either two intermediate or an intermediate and advanced career which is absurdly uneven.
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May 3, 2020 01:38
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ChaseSP posted:The issue is despite them going only through 3 low level careers they're considered "equal" to a character going through a first level career and either two intermediate or an intermediate and advanced career which is absurdly uneven. As long as you balance characters by EXP, it's very hard to have them come out badly. I demonstrated as much with the rebuilds of the underpowered characters in Lure of the Liche Lord. The issue wasn't even so much the careers (though they did hurt at the point they did them, since it was a pretty silly spread of them) but 2800 vs. 5700 EXP. The thing is look over at the team in Thousand Thrones; I know the Career system extremely well and so even characters who were being playful like Syphan turned out crazy by that point. Anyone with 5000+ EXP should be a badass. It's almost impossible to fail to be. The issue there was stuff like 'their fighter could have, and should have, been Sif at that point rather than just acceptable'.
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May 3, 2020 01:43
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Tangent - Rolling out combat with Silverbeard's Throng Okay, so this sort of became a more involved thing than I expected. If you’re not interested in reading about a relatively new GM rolling out combat involving 15 different characters, I don’t blame you and your'e not missing out on much. Anyway, I created a Roll20 instance to handle the rolling, and tried to play the characters optimally as I could without taking advantage of the fact that I’m rolling both sides. While doing this, I noticed a few rules that I might have been misinterpreting, or interpreting correctly but presented in the book in a way that’s a bit unclear. I figured I’d use this as a learning experience, so I tried to be as rules-accurate as possible. To begin, the adventure describes Silverbeard confronting the players with his throng. I included the full party of 6 premade characters and assumed no one had Surprise on the other and that the PCs have all of their Resolve and Fortune. Also, the fight is presented without a map, so I’m using a faux-Theater of the Mind style of running the fight. In particular, I won’t be using rules for attacking from the sides or behind, which benefits the outnumbered PCs. Finally, the PCs will be focused on taking down Silverbeard as efficiently as possible, while Silverbeard’s Throng will be spreading out their attacks. Taking out Silverbeard will cause the rest of the Throng to break and flee, and I justify this behavior for the PCs that taking out the leader is standard tactics that players would use and something that’s called out specifically as a way to get Advantage. The first time I ran this combat, I had Silverbeard at the front of his Throng where he could be charged. Besides Amris having to burn a Fate point to avoid a very unlucky Critical Wound that would have killed him instantly, they rolled very well and had no trouble killing Silverbeard in the first round of combat before he even got a chance to act. For funsy I played out the rest of the round so that Else would at least get a turn to act, but the thugs failed to do much of anything on their turns. One thing I hadn’t appreciated before now is that the PCs have a higher initiative, letting them act first and charge the Throng instead of the other way around. Charging gives them an initial bonus of +1 Advantage, and using Fortune rerolls gives them excellent odds of winning the Melee test for another +1 Advantage. Once the Advantage was against them, the Throng had very poor odds on succeeding in Melee combat without the benefit of Fortune or support from ranged units, meaning the PCs accrued even more Advantage. I chose to re-run the combat with Silverbeard in the middle of his throng, and interpreted the Outnumbering rules differently. RAW, the number of characters Engaged in melee combat on each side determines who Outnumbers whom, and since Amris, Gunnar (+20), and Salundra (+40) were only Engaged with Silverbeard… well, you can see how they were able to dish out 20 wounds. This time Silverbeard had a front line to protect him, so the PCs won’t be able to charge just him, and I counted the entire frontline of the throng for the purposes of Outnumbering, meaning neither group outnumbered the other. This time the PCs rolled much more poorly and weren’t able to focus down Silverbeard. Amris and Salundra both failed to hit on their initial charges despite using Fortune, meaning the Thugs on the frontline had Advantage. Initially Gunnar is able to build up +5 Advantage over a few rounds and seems like he might be able to hold the frontline, until a lucky Critical Hit by one of the thugs manages to wound him and reset him to 0. The fight becomes a battle of attrition where the PCs are outnumbered by tough dwarves, and Salundra and Amris drop to 0 wounds and need to burn Fate to survive. At this point I decide to hit the panic button and have Else burn Resilience to exploit the Dual Wielding rules: Dual Wielding posted:When armed with two weapons, you may attack with both for your Action. Roll to hit with the weapon held in your primary hand. If you hit, determine Damage as normal, but remember to keep your dice roll, as you will use it again. If the first strike hits, once it is resolved, the weapon in your secondary hand can then target an available opponent of your choice using the same dice roll for the first strike, but reversed. So, if you rolled 34 to hit with the first weapon, you use 43 to hit with the second. Remember to modify this second roll by your off-hand penalty (–20 unless you have the Ambidextrous Talent). This second attack is Opposed with a new defending roll, and damage for this second strike is calculated as normal. The only exception to this is if you roll a Critical for your first strike. If this happens, use the roll on the Critical Table to also act as the roll for the second attack. So, if you scored a critical to the head and rolled 56 on the Critical table for a Major Eye Wound, your second attack would then strike out with a to-hit value of 56. If you choose to attack with both weapons, all your defensive rolls until the start of your next Turn suffer a penalty of –10. You do not gain an Advantage when you successfully strike or Wound an opponent when Dual Wielding unless both attacks hit. The party has burned 2 Fate points and 1 Resilience point, and Amris, Salundra, and Gunnar all have Critical Wounds with varying levels of severity that will require medical attention and time to heal. They rolled poorly and Silverbeard’s Throng rolled well, but not unusually so. If I hadn’t exploited the Dual Wield rules, the Resilience rules, and my GM knowledge that killing Silverbeard wins the fight, I think the PCs would have been wiped out completely. Either way, I feel absolutely confident in saying that this fight is objectively deadlier than the Troll fight. The fact that the Troll fight is treated as a potential party killer with warnings to skip it and this fight is thrown in as an optional response by Silverbeard is a huge red flag, and makes me retroactively adjust my Guidance score. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 17, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 03:37
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Oh, hey, it looks like that hasn't changed from 2e: Adventure writers not realizing a single big enemy is going to get its poo poo kicked in while 'reasonable number of reasonably trained foes' is one of the most dangerous encounters in Hams. Honestly that's the biggest impression I'm getting from this so far; the adventure writers don't seem to have learned a lot from the mistakes of adventures in 2e.
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May 3, 2020 03:56
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Night10194 posted:As long as you balance characters by EXP, it's very hard to have them come out badly. I demonstrated as much with the rebuilds of the underpowered characters in Lure of the Liche Lord. The issue wasn't even so much the careers (though they did hurt at the point they did them, since it was a pretty silly spread of them) but 2800 vs. 5700 EXP.
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May 3, 2020 04:20
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Zereth posted:Could you fail to be by deliberately spreading yourself as thin as possible? Thereby sucking at magic, fighting, shooting, talking, etc? It's theoretically possible, but starts to become genuinely difficult after awhile. You could theoretically take so many different 1st tiers that you suck forever, but you'd honestly have to be trying. Goran in Liche Lord is one of the worst built characters I've ever seen (having 3 separate not that great 1st tier fighter classes) and even he's salvageable, he'd just be terrible at 2800 EXP where a Fighter should be getting really good.
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May 3, 2020 04:24
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 The Wars is the second book in the YKRPG set. In The Wars, the players take the parts of a squad of soldiers in 1947, in an alternate version of Europe locked in a seemingly endless war known as the Continental War or the War of Reclamation. This is not World War I or II, although it draws from elements of both of them. But the war is also fought with increasingly weirder and more dangerous machines, because it's not only Earthly nations involved; the powers of Carcosa are also taking a hand in the fighting, and the influence of the Yellow King is spawning unearthly horrors on the battlefield. The PCs in The Wars are a team of French soldiers, although non-French characters can be included as members of the Foreign Legion. Soldiers can be either men or women – you can make having female soldiers be unusual, or not, as you prefer. The PCs can be a squad of military police, AWOL soldiers, or specialists in weird missions, whatever suits the players and GM; the important thing is to ensure that the PCs have a mission or specialty that allows them enough freedom to act without having to constantly check in with their commanders. Laws mentions that in his home game, he based the players' unit on the "Ghost Army" from World War II, which traveled around the war zone confusing the enemy by setting up fake tanks and truck convoys, posing as members of other units, and making bogus radio broadcasts. As with Paris, characters are created by combining an investigative kit and a general kit. The first investigative kit, Lieutenant, should be assigned by the GM to whichever player they think will be a good leader. The other kits include: Sergeant Private (civilian occupation: medical student) Private (civilian occupation: merchant) Private (civilian occupation: peasant) Private (civilian occupation: photographer) Private (civilian occupation: writer) The civilian occupations ensure that the privates have different investigative abilities divided among them. And yes, Laws notes that private is not a French military rank, but it's easier than teaching your players French ranks, unless you happen to be French yourself. Laws suggests that if you played Paris, the Lieutenant should go to whoever played the Architect, the Sergeant to the Sculptor, the Medical Student to the Poet, the Merchant to the Portrait Painter, the Peasant to the Landscape Painter, the Photographer to the Muse, and the Writer to the Belle-Lettrist. It is, of course, not required that you do it this way, and you can just let the players pick whatever kit interests them. General kits include the following, with the note that you can build your own kits by assigning 54 (for Horror campaigns) or 60 (for Occult Adventures) points to the general abilities. This is almost double what Paris PCs get, but as we'll see, The Wars characters have more general abilities to spread points around. The general kits include: Bruiser Conscience Fox Ghost Grease Monkey Mathematician Raw Recruit Tactician As with Paris, each player creates a Drive and a drat Peculiar Thing for their character. If you also played Paris, each player should establish a connection between their Paris and The Wars characters. They could be a descendant, they might have met and received a mysterious warning from the older character, they might be obsessed with the older character's work, or whatever the player can think of. There is no need, however, to establish relationships between the PCs; the chain of command and the pressures of the war zone should do that well enough. The Wars includes some new investigative abilities, as well as some transferred over from Paris or renamed. These include: Accounting Blueblood (you are recognized as a gentleman/lady among the upper class, and can expect deference from servants) Farming Flattery Humanities (a catchall for art, cultures, languages, and other stuff that doesn't usually matter much on the battlefield) Hunting Interrogation Intimidation Law Leadership Lowlife (basically the same as Paris's Demimonde) Medicine Military Logistics Military Science Political Science Salt of the Earth (you're one of the good ol' boys) Science Terrain (the ability to read maps, study a battlefield for best positions, spot ambushes, etc.) Besides these, the investigative ability list also includes Assess Honesty, Inspiration, Intuition, Negotiation, Occultism, Photography, and Reassurance, which work as they did in Paris.
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May 3, 2020 05:31
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Night10194 posted:Oh, hey, it looks like that hasn't changed from 2e: Adventure writers not realizing a single big enemy is going to get its poo poo kicked in while 'reasonable number of reasonably trained foes' is one of the most dangerous encounters in Hams. So, first, the Troll flees after it drops below 20 Wounds, which mean it effectively has 18 Wounds. Silverbeard has 20 Wounds. The Troll has Regenerate and Painless, which makes it tougher in a long fight and less susceptible to critical wounds, but they are comparable. The Troll has TB 4 and Armor 2, so it has a damage reduction of 6. Silverbeard has TB 5, so he has a damage reduction of 5. So the Troll is tougher, right? Except the SL of an attack contributes to the damage, meaning a higher WS from the defender also reduces damage. The Troll has WS 40, Silverbeard has WS 50, so Silverbeard is taking the same amount of damage when the party manages to hit. But WS is better than armor (in melee), because if the party misses he takes 0 damage. Also, the Troll is large, so he takes more damage from ranged attacks. The Troll has a +9 Weapon and a +8 Bite compared to Silverbeard +8 Weapon, so in theory the Troll can hit with two attacks per turn and deal significantly more damage. In practice, the Troll isn't going to have the Advantage available to use his Bite, and the extra WS that Silverbeard has means he's doing more damage on average because he's hitting on rolls where the Troll would miss. Edit: I mean, reducing them both down to just hit points and average damage is glossing over a lot of detail, but still Tibalt fucked around with this message at 06:15 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 06:03
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Tibalt posted:The Troll has a +9 Weapon and a +8 Bite compared to Silverbeard +8 Weapon, so in theory the Troll can hit with two attacks per turn and deal significantly more damage. In practice, the Troll isn't going to have the Advantage available to use his Bite, and the extra WS that Silverbeard has means he's doing more damage on average because he's hitting on rolls where the Troll would miss. The Troll has vomit as well. And if he does score a hit he can attack a different person, or spend his advantage to bite or vomit. Still the troll will have issues being outnumbered. It's why I had the troll use the River to his advantage. This along with his ability to leave combat whenever he wanted made him much harder to deal with.
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May 3, 2020 07:06
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Libertad! posted:This book’s dragons are known as taninim, who are a distinct species from true dragons. They are primarily differentiated by their plane of birth: an egg which hatches on the Lost Isles becomes a taninim baby, while anywhere outside it becomes a true dragon wyrmling. In terms of thematics there’s not really any difference: both can fly, breathe lines or cones of harmful energy, grow large, and so on. The major difference is that taninim are not forever locked into a single alignment. The bizarre, convoluted justifications D&D writers come up with to end-run around stupid, hard-coded alignment restrictions are nearly as ridiculous as the bizarre, convoluted justifications Star Wars writers come up with to justify misspelling some alien species'name.
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May 3, 2020 08:40
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Me: Toss alignment. It's worthless cruft Gygax and Friends lifted from Moorcock with no real idea of what they were doing, and it's only grown cruft since. Friend: We have to use it, because there are spells that key off of alignment. Me: Thank you for proving my point.
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May 3, 2020 17:28
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Bieeanshee posted:Me: Toss alignment. It's worthless cruft Gygax and Friends lifted from Moorcock with no real idea of what they were doing, and it's only grown cruft since. All systems with a formal Alignment system like D&D would be improved by tossing it out a window, into the trash, where it can join Critical Fumbles in the dustbin of bad ideas.
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May 3, 2020 17:30
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Night10194 posted:All systems with a formal Alignment system like D&D would be improved by tossing it out a window, into the trash, where it can join Critical Fumbles in the dustbin of bad ideas. Now I'm remembering a conversation I had where someone described how they applied critical fumbles to saving throws. I think it's time to start drinking.
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May 3, 2020 17:35
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Bieeanshee posted:I think it's time to start drinking. I can't believe any of us stopped.
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May 3, 2020 17:57
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ah yes i too love stabbing my eye out for being particularly unobservant in my perception checks
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May 3, 2020 19:27
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 Taking 20 is a very popular YouTube channel specializing in 5th Edition content with a bit of Pathfinder and Starfinder on the side. Cody Lewis, the creator and owner of said channel, decided to try his hand in self-publishing a homebrew class. The Mist Walker takes the rather popular concept of a teleporting warrior and builds an entire class around it. While there are some archetypes capable of this already in 5th Edition, they usually don’t have it right off the bat or have to use it under certain circumstances, whereas the Mist Walker is capable of at-will short-range teleportation by default. Fluffwise Mist Walkers are practitioners of a skill of unknown origins which utilizes “the mists” to move about unhindered. They tend to belong to martial orders, assassin’s guilds, and the like. As this book is OGL and not part of the DM’s Guild, the ode to Ravenloft is subtle rather than blatant. For those not read up on ‘Ravenloftian lore, the Mists are an omnipresent and seemingly intelligent force which makes up the foundation of the Demiplane of Dread. It is capable of being manipulated by its most infamous prisoners, the Darklords, to afflict and imprison those within their domains of influence. The Vistani are a human ethnic group based off of the Roma people who are the only known beings capable of traversing the Mists without difficulty or error. Cody’s Mist Walker more or less tosses out the themes of subtle corruption in trying to control such a thing. The closest we get is with the Conviction of the Shroud subclass which manipulates life energy to harm foes, but there’s no Faustian bargains or alignment tendencies. You’re more akin to Noctis from Final Fantasy XV than a horror movie monster stalking one’s prey. Mist Walkers as a class are a stealth/martial hybrid: d10 hit die, proficiency with light armor and shields, can use all simple weapons plus smaller blades (short swords, scimitars, rapiers), is proficient with the poisoner’s kit, and chooses three skills which are very close to the Rogue’s options (Acrobatics, Deception, etc). The Mist Walker’s main class feature is...well, Mist Walk. It is an at-will teleportation which is performed as part of or in replacement of one’s movement rather than an action on its own. Its distance starts out at 30 feet but increases by 10 feet at 4th level and every 4 levels after, and its major restrictions are that you cannot combine it with the Dash action and you can only Mist Walk to places you can see, meaning that a blind Mist Walker loses the use of their primary feature. Mist Walk automatically avoids triggering opportunity attacks, which is one of the more common bits of contention on Drive-Thru RPG reviews besides the at-will teleport. Beyond just teleporting, the Mist Walk ability’s total distance is halved if you mix it up with mundane forms of movement, which in turn are halved as well. At 3rd and higher levels you can add a +1 to +3 bonus on attack rolls when you first use Mist Walk, at 5th level you can teleport another half of your max Mist Walk as a bonus action, and at 7th level you can Mist Walk half your distance as a reaction to avoid hostile AoEs provided that you succeed on the saving throw in the first place. As an example of said uses (plus some class features detailed below), let’s say that some foolish wizard shoots a Fireball at a 20th-level elven Mist Walker in an urban metropolis. Said Mist Walker can teleport onto a four-story roof (40 feet) as a reaction to avoid said Fireball, mundane move 15 feet to take cover behind a chimney and snipe back at their foe, and then teleport 40 feet onto a nearby balcony out of the sniper’s line of sight as part of their movement. But, as a bonus action they mist walk another 40 feet under an awning at ground level to further throw the wizard off their trail. Beyond this core feature, the Mist Walker lets you add your Intelligence and Dexterity modifiers to your Armor Class while not wearing armor, and you can choose from Fighting Styles but only Dueling or Two-Weapon Fighting. You gain an Extra Attack at 5th level, can reroll an Intelligence-based ability or skill check 1/short rest at 6th level, add your Intelligence modifier to all weapon damage at 9th, add Intelligence bonus to all Wisdom and Charisma saves at 10th a limited number of times per day equal to said Intelligence bonus, and Blindsight of 15 feet at 13th level. A rather large number of utility features are unrelated to mist-walking, but several are quite good: adding two ability score modifiers to weapon damage is really nice, and given that Mist Walkers are proficient in Dexterity and Intelligence saves the ability to add the latter to the other mental saves helps shore up the class’ likely weak willpower. Mist Walkers also gain Shroud Abilities at 2nd level, letting you gain a number of Shroud Points equal to their level which refresh on a long rest. Shroud Abilities represent quick summoning of the mist in order to avert disaster or act quickly. The class grants 3 different Shroud Abilities immediately: Cloaking Mist creates a 30 foot radius of mist which is similar to darkness in terms of concealment, Veiled Shield adds +2 to +4 AC* as a reaction to a melee attack, and Jaunt moves you as a reaction upon taking damage up to half your Mist Walk distance in a direction of your choice. All three abilities have very good uses, although I can see Veiled Shield seeing the most use. *dependent upon level. At 17th level and above our final 3 class features get more explicit in the use of mist. 17th level allows you to cast Mirror Image as a bonus action which can move and teleport in tandem with you; can do a normal Teleport spell without components at 18th level whose recharge rate varies from a long rest to 1d6 days depending on if you teleport additional creatures; and finally at 20th level you can create a clone of yourself 1/long rest out of the mists themselves. Said clone has near-identical stats save that they add only their Intelligence modifier to damage, cannot duplicate magic items (wielded and worn items become closest mundane equivalent), add Intelligence and no proficiency bonus to all saving throws, has half your Mist Walk distance, and is immune to various conditions due to being a mindless artificial entity. Mist Walker Convictions serve as the subclass options, and we get 3 different ones representing differing ways for how Mist Walkers shape their talents and abilities. The Conviction of the Blade pursues its martial uses to the exclusion of others, Conviction of the Mind focuses on aiding allies and battlefield control, while Conviction of the Shroud taps into the mists’ pseudo-Ravenloftian vibe to drain others’ life force to power yourself or another. Each gets an ability at 7th, 11th, and 15th levels, but the amount of initial 3rd level abilities varies wildly: Blade gets 2, Shroud gets 3, while Mind gets a whopping 6! The Mind is the most front-loaded and has the widest use in utility for tactics and builds, some of which even step on Blade’s toes in seeming more martial than usual. Conviction of the Blade grants a Shroud Ability which can forcefully teleport opponents a short distance of your choosing into an open space, and can do so at no Shroud Point cost on a critical hit. At 7th level all of your weapons count as magical. At 11th level you can mark a struck target to deal 1d10 bonus force damage on attacks for infinite duration, or until said target moves farther than 150 feet away. The 15th level ability grants a 1/short rest feature where you deal 12d10 bonus force damage after studying a target via a successful Investigation check as a bonus action. Conviction of the Mind is heavily front-loaded. Its 3 bonus Shroud Abilities include clouding a target’s mind with mist to impose -2 to AC, saves, and preventing use of reactions, using the mists to disarm-teleport the weapon of a creature that you struck as a bonus action, and creating obscuring mists over a nearby target to impose disadvantage on attacks for one turn. The three non-Shroud initial features include the ability to grant nearby allies short-range Mist Walking, the ability to refresh Shroud Points 1/day during a short rest instead of a long rest, and can swap the positions of two willing targets within half your Mist Walk distance. The 7th level ability allows you to take creatures with you on a Mist Walk a limited number of times per day equal to your Intelligence modifier (or twice that at 13th level) and give them advantage on their next attack after ending said Mist Walk. At 11th level you can interrupt enemy spellcasting by teleporting up to 30 feet to them as a reaction and get in a free attack 1/short rest, and at 15th level you can swap places with a willing ally just about to be hit by an attack as a reaction. Conviction of the Shroud grants a Shroud Ability that heals hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier to all allies within 10 feet, and double and triple that at higher levels. The other 2 initial features include the ability to Hide as a bonus action whenever you use Mist Walk as part of your movement, and the ability to transfer 1d6 to 5d6 plus your Intelligence modifier in hit points from yourself to a touched ally. At 7th level you can create a toxic mist which grants the drowning and incapacitated conditions to those who fail a Constitution save. At 11th level you can create life-sapping mist in a 30 foot radius centered on you that deals 4d6 damage to any number of creatures of your choice, and can divvy up the damage as restored hit points to any number of other creatures within range that you desire. The 15th level final ability allows you to wreath a number of creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier in a protective purple mist, gaining +2 AC, 1d4 temporary hit points, and they cannot be magically slowed. Besides the Shroud Ability and 15th level feature which is 1/short rest, all of Shroud’s abilities are usable a number of times per day equal to your Intelligence modifier, and twice or even thrice that depending on level. Existing Class Comparisons: The Mist Walker is clearly meant to be a mobile striker with some stealth and scouting capabilities, which brings to mind classes such as Fighter, Monk, Ranger, and Rogue. But before we tackle anything else, let us bring up at-will short-range teleportation. Unless I’m missing something in the newer books such as Wildemount, the Way of Shadows Monk and the Horizon Walker Ranger are the only two subclasses which can do something close to what the Mist Walker can. They’re of more limited use: the Shadow Monk at 6th level can teleport 60 feet as a bonus action but only between areas of dim light and darkness, which interestingly means that they’re not likely limited by line of sight given visual obscurement. The Horizon Walker at 11th level can go but a mere 10 feet, but gets up to 3 attacks provided that they attack at least 2 different targets. The Shadow Sorcerer can do what the Shadow Monk does, but 120 feet and at 14th level. In comparison to classes in general, the Mist Walker is pretty strong, although in ways other than Mist Walking. The ability to stack bonuses on attack rolls when making attacks as part of Mist Walk can break Bounded Accuracy, and adding Intelligence on top of Strength and Dexterity for weapon damage is pretty sweet. But in terms of raw damage output it can’t attack as much as a Fighter with Action Surge, nor does it have the Rogues’ Sneak Attack. Its lack of proficiency with martial ranged weapons* is a bit of a weak point. While conjuring concealing mists is nice, such an effect is more noticeable to guards than the vaunted Invisibility spell. That several of the pseudo-mist abilities can be blown away by strong winds or dissipate after a minute are more points against its favor. I can definitely see class’ potential brokenness, although this will vary for a variety of monsters and tactics: the Mist Walker’s going to shine in a wide open area and/or facing melee-focused monsters without much mobility. But against many offensive spellcasters, creatures which can blind, create obscuring or illusory effects, and prefer cramped dungeon corridors with lots of cover can befuddle the Mist Walker. While it can seem rather powerful, opportunity attack-focused builds are more common on the PC side** than the NPC/Monster side in 5th Edition. While a Mist Walker can easily kite slower monsters without ranged attacks, the same can be said for an archer with a mount. *unless you’re playing an elf or something. **Namely feats such as Polearm Mastery and Sentinel. Final Thoughts: The Mist Walker is a bit all over the place, and as such feels unfocused. The vibe one gets is a supernatural warrior unhindered by the limitations of physical space, with some assassin vibes thrown in. But besides teleportation the Mist Walker doesn’t have many means of actually concealing their presence from greater-than-normal perceptions and detection. The creation of concealing mist is a bit of a double-edged sword, as while the Mist Walker can conjure it to befuddle opponents it also negates their line of sight in or out of said mist which limits their core feature. The core class and subclass abilities are all over the place in terms of refresh rates, ranging from short rests to long rests to per-day uses which can double or triple all at different rates. This only serves to add more book-keeping for the player. In terms of Convictions, Mind is the superior option, especially in comparison to Blade. Two of the Mind’s shroud abilities (disarming and disadvantage on attacks) feel more pertinent to Blade, whereas the forceful teleportations feel more in line with Mind’s battlefield control. Interrupting enemy spellcasters also sounds right up Blade’s alley. But most of all, Mind’s ability to refresh Shroud Points on a short rest 1/day effectively doubles said resource. This allows them to use both their base and Conviction-specific Shroud Abilities twice as often than if the Mist Walker picked either of the other two Convictions. Conviction of Shroud’s a bit of a mixed bag. Its 7th and 11th level abilities are the sweetest, but its final 15th level ability is a bit underwhelming. The initial 3rd level features’ magical healing is both less than a Cure Wounds spell and saps the Mist Walker’s hit points which makes them less widely-useful as a typical divine healer. The 11th level ability opens up a variant Bag of Rats exploitation, but given its limited use and class’ overall lack of spell slots this isn’t really a big deal. I don’t think I’d use this class as is in a campaign. I’d rebalance the Convictions at the very least, and try to make a more unified rest-based refresh rate of class features for consistency’s sake. Join us next time as we review what a Jojo reference is with the Channeler! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 21:41 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 21:29
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Bieeanshee posted:Me: Toss alignment. It's worthless cruft Gygax and Friends lifted from Moorcock with no real idea of what they were doing, and it's only grown cruft since. If alignment is ever anything more than something to help beginning players get a handle on their characters' moral/ethical outlooks, it's way too involved in the game.
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May 4, 2020 05:47
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Everyone posted:If alignment is ever anything more than something to help beginning players get a handle on their characters' moral/ethical outlooks, it's way too involved in the game. But no version of D&D has ever been that. Not even close.
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May 4, 2020 05:53
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and alignments mostly result in the Baby Orc problem, and a lot of very bad behavior from players going "I'm playing my alignment" No, stabbing the king in the dick while he's trying to give the party a quest isn't roleplaying Chaotic Neutral, it's being a disruptive rear end in a top hat.
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May 4, 2020 06:38
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Robindaybird posted:and alignments mostly result in the Baby Orc problem, and a lot of very bad behavior from players going "I'm playing my alignment"
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May 4, 2020 07:40
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Defenders of the Forest The Value of Ambiguity So Athel Loren is just the blueprint forest laid down by the Old Ones, the first woodland ever placed on this world. I want you to look at that for a moment and think about it. What is one of the primary features the Loren had going for it that made it an interesting place? Nobody understood what the hell it was doing. There was a lot of room for theories, but no direct 'this is just what it is'. It was a thing that didn't behave like anything else in the setting. Bits of it felt like the Chaos Wastes, but it certainly wasn't on Chaos's side. Dryads certainly seem like demons, but they aren't quite the same. That sort of stuff. Just outright saying 'This is what the Loren is' robs it of the mystery that makes it interesting. Compare this to the hints about the Old Ones elsewhere in the main series: It's never revealed what they wanted their creations for, with multiple plausible motives for their experiments. The theory that Chaos may have been summoned by their slaves to oppose them in Realm of Sorcery is interesting (but also comes from a Chaos Sorcerer). What made the Gate collapse? Rebellion? Civil War? Sabotage? Simply a giant industrial accident? IF you're going to run a campaign where 'what the gently caress was up with the Old Ones' comes up, you have enough information for multiple possible explanations. You can get multiple stories out of the hook. Here, it's just 'The Loren is Forest #1, that's why it's weird'. There's also the larger question of how likely it is that this information is going to matter to players. Let's talk their stuff on Orion and Ariel. Orion and Ariel are very important characters. One could even say they're the heart of the Loren Asrai. We're told here they were two young lovers who skipped out on a strategy meeting about 'oh god, dwarfs are coming to kill us all, Caledor II shaved their ambassador' to go get high and frisky in the woods. Somehow the woods grabbed them and turned them into demigods because of this, and the elfs suddenly found themselves backed up by a ton of forest spirits when the dwarfs attacked. They won easily (the elfs will win most things easily in this book) and note the elfs had no goddamn idea why the dryads were helping them at this point. Somehow they still coordinated perfectly with them. Then that winter, a ton of beastmen and orcs showed up to try to do what the dwarfs couldn't, and Orion revealed himself as a giant naked buff elf with horns. This inspired the elfs to victory. They like a good giant naked buff elf with horns. Ariel ran around healing people, they were acknowledged as Gods, and became king and queen forever in Loren. So, what does that story tell you about either of them? Jack and poo poo. Orion is a big buff naked elf with horns and Ariel has powerful healing magic. Their descriptions are generally more about their powers than their personalities, their character, etc. You can say they're intentionally otherworldly, but even in that case it would be more useful to a GM to describe a little about how. I don't need to know Orion is super powerful for the majority of his writeup, I need to know stuff that can let me write PC interactions with Orion or how his presence changes society at levels they'll feel. Let's take two examples from other (fully published) books: Katarin the Tsarina of Kislev and Louen Leoncour. Even if your PCs never actually meet them, both have distinct personalities and a strong influence on the cultures they exist in. Louen is the Best Knight. He is absolutely everything both a Bretonnian Knight and a Bretonnian King is supposed to be. And his country is still hosed up and probably headed towards revolution some day. He is a genuinely good man who means the best for his people, even to the degree of (in a convoluted and roundabout way) being willing to hear and correct the concerns of the peasantry, even against some of his nobles in some cases. He really is a fantastic warrior, a good general, and even a decent diplomat. He's forthright, honest, and kind. And because the system of government he rules over is a mess, this can't fix everything (and in fact might not fix anything, not really). It puts the spotlight on the inequalities of Bretonnia while providing adventures (trying to get the King's ear for your problem to get the resources and permission to do justice) and gives you an interesting man to use as an NPC if it comes up. Katarin is ruthlessly intelligent and does the things she does for advantage rather than kindness, but her intelligence makes her do morally right things surprisingly often. Her centralizing project gives you all kinds of space for adventures and conflict within Kislevite society, while also forcing her to side with the commoners over her Boyars sometimes to weaken them. It also causes brutal repression sometimes. You end up with an interesting and ambiguous figure whose influence is felt at all levels of society, and so her projects and her high politics actually matter to PCs even if you're running a small scale Kislevite game. So those are good examples of how to write a big huge NPC for your country/a national leader. Compare to Orion and Ariel. All we know about them is they have rippling abs and powerful fae magic, respectively. You're told to use one as punishment for players and the other as a deus ex machina to save them. That's it. This is because this is all textbook bad fantasy 'worldbuilding'. If you're writing worldbuilding for an RPG setting book, what is your goal? Your goal is to provide hooks, things to spark imagination, places to get the players and GM excited about filling things in and finding things out. Read Spire's core-book (seriously it's worth it even if you don't intend to play it). You get lots of little hooks about the culture, enough to have a sense of place. You get lots of little asides about fascinating events and curious places. Because this is trying to get you excited and give you things to write! AND they're often on a scale you, the PCs, will care about in ways that give you ideas for characters and how to play. What we need for the elfs are stuff like 'how the heck did Asur start acting and looking like this' or 'How did people react to Ariel and Orion'. Did anyone object? Does anyone STILL object? Are they the beginning of the shift from 'haughty high elf' to 'crazy baby-stealing fae'? Something, anything to give these people some texture and personality so you have more than one concept for a wood elf PC. Or hell, even just something interesting to read. This is all just a dry list of dates when random fantasy names did stuff. There's nothing to help inspire another writer here. You get lots of descriptions of the magic powers and crazy elf wine, you get lots of 'roleplaying tips' that tell you precisely how to play a wood elf, but you don't get a society. The Asrai aren't depicted or written like a people, they're an archetype, and one that typecasts you. Compare that to the Empire. How much fun are the Empire's laws and messy bullshit and massive regional variations? You read their material and you're like 'man, the PCs getting to play a traveling judge party as they have legal dramas and also try not to get murdered on the roads sounds fun'. The complete goddamn mess of feudal obligations, freidstadts, the conflicts between people in power, the differences between the cults, all these things produce the kind of conflict that makes fun characters. All these things have room for outliers and people who 'don't fit in'. The multicultural society makes parties like the Thousand Crowns not just possible, but plausible. Immigrants and people of separate species and Imperials all adventuring together is fun. The Asrai don't have any of that. Not only do they not have any of that texture, they don't even have any of that conflict. They have a bullshit magic society where everyone 'knows their place' and automatically understands all value and agrees with their masters, who are actually depicted as superior beings. Without any sort of internal conflict or texture, what the hell are you supposed to do to get fun characters out of this nonsense? I don't give a poo poo about dragon swords that cleave through time and space or the mighty powers of Ariel. I want to know more about how a bunch of Asur decided they were going to listen to racist trees and worship a pair of demigods and start stealing babies and calling themselves Asrai. I want to know if any of them object to that. I want to know how they deal with living in a crazy rear end magical forest that sometimes tries to lure them into the basement with magic honey fruit. I don't care about the exact dates of when the Winter Dryads got mad at the elfs and had to be sealed in a stone circle. Timelines can matter, but only when there's enough history that it means anything, and there isn't here. Oh, and you navigate the forest through a series of charts. CHARTS. Nothing says a magical forest full of wonder where time and space aren't certain like a set of charts and firm rules for when your 'try not to get lost' roll causes Orion to show up and gank your party. If you don't have Navigation you check WP and if you fail, you get lost and your PC maybe ages d100 years or d100 years pass outside. So what the heck does it do to your campaign if you walk into the Loren and walks out in 2622? Potentially, that could be a great campaign hook! As a random event, not so much; that'll kill your game faster than a Deck of Many Things back in D&D (you can Burn Fate to escape these things and get out immediately. The whole party needs to. It's effectively a one-failed-roll TPK). The Trials of the Forest are all about tracking your precise overland movement rates and rolling checks on a chart. Trials are things like 'PCs must pass a Speak Arcane Magic+10 test to speak intelligently about the interconnection of all life so Treebeard's racist tree uncle he's embarrassed about doesn't smash them', which both presupposes players will do that in the first place, and is a really boring way to handle 'you encounter Treebeard's racist uncle and have to talk your way out'. So gently caress that noise. If there's anyplace that should be handled more narratively, it's traveling a magic forest. Rolling purely for random encounters and trials to determine movement rates and poo poo is one of the worst ways I've seen to get across 'you are in an altered space of magical weirdness'. Finally, we get actual adventure seeds: One is to fight Cyanthir the Corruptor (Morghur the Mutator, by human naming) and considering he's a major campaign villain that actually does scare the PCs some in my current WHFRP campaign, I am interested. This guy is a hosed up weird creature that nobody understands, a lord of Beastmen with an aura of mutation and corruption who slowly turns his own followers into Chaos Spawn but they can't help but follow him. Every time he's killed he's reborn again; no-one is quite sure how to actually waste this bastard. The plot hook for him here is the elves are mad the humans haven't killed this guy and are angry the humans haven't helped them with a war most humans don't know they're actually fighting against him. So they kidnap your PCs to make them fight a swarm of Beastmen. And they make Morghur immune to anything but magic. Then, after the battle, unless your PCs were extremely helpful, they either try to kill all their kidnapped human allies or just get them lost forever in the forest. What complete and utter dicks. This is why no-one helps you, you hosed up baby stealing monstrosities. You can also be accidentally recruited to fight Dryad Hitler, Dracha, who wants to kill all humans but also wants to kill all elfs and make a world for trees only. This adventure is 'only suited for elven PCs, as non-elfs are rarely able to tell the malicious forest spirits from the capricious and playful ones'. Yeah, people generally don't have a lot of patience for stuff that enjoys luring people into the woods and murdering them, and don't make a lot of distinction between 'occasionally does it for fun' and 'plans to exterminate the human race' when both act like loving tree demons. You can also try to find Duke Tancred of Quenelles' kid, who got lost on grail quest in the forest. Or help Huebald of Carcassone against the orcs with iron skin he's facing. But these are more Bretonnian than elf adventures. The forest section is just terrible. It's boring, completely without mystery or interesting hooks, and c'mon. Fighting Morghur the hosed up cosmic horror beastman should be awesome! Even 'you get kidnapped into a mystic shadow war you had no idea existed' could be cool in the hands of a good writer or GM (with buy-in from the players before you spring it on them). But 'we just kinda kill or abandon everyone who we forced to help us, while whining about how no-one ever comes to help us with problems we never tell them about and murder them for helping with' is like...Remember, this book wants you to think these elfs are good and kind and wise. gently caress these elfs. I'm just going to skip the Specific Places stuff because it's a huge amount of more boring nonsense and you get the gist of the problem here. Next Time: Making Your Own Magical Mystical Woodland
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May 4, 2020 14:41
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Defenders of the Forest The Plight Of The Magic Perfect Elf Alright, I gotta write this now because I'm angry. You remember how I said this book was mostly bad fantasy worldbuilding but not especially offensive? I missed something. When they get into the Hinterglades and start talking about the Reikwald elfs, they drop a loving trail of tears reference. With the elfs being 'forced to endure the march of sorrows' with Karl Franz trying to force them onto reservations. No, gently caress you. Your magic perfect elfs don't get to call back to the very real genocidal actions of Andrew loving Jackson. Actions like the Indian Removal Act constitute some of the most shameful and terrible things the United States ever did (up there with chattel slavery) and an off-handed 'clever' historical reference with that language is not how you use this. It's trying to make the elfs seem more sympathetic at the cost of cheapening a very real historical tragedy. Look, you can reference, deal with, and work through actual historical tragedies in your elfgames. You can write elfgames about serious stuff. But you need to give it weight. You need to actually work with it. You can't just off-handedly go 'elf trail of tears' with the 'indigenous kithbands of the Reikwald forest'. This kind of thing needs to be treated with actual gravity, not used as a cheap plot hook. You don't write the 'elf reservation' without due care. They even have a loving ancient elven burial ground being desecrated. Goddamnit! It just doesn't work and who the hell thought this was a good idea? It's a collection of lazy tropes used as a cheap hook that degrades the very real crimes and brutality and struggles it's referencing. So yeah, gently caress that. The other example Hinterglades are places like 'elfs wandered off to follow their favorite tree after it went extinct' and 'oh goddamnit elfs, you played yourselves'. So the Doomed Kindred are funny instead of making me angry, so they get more writing up than the guys who followed their pet tree east. The Doomed Kindred live in Kislev, the survivors of a destroyed Glade who think they're following a spirit called the Leshii (Goddamnit, Leshii are a normal Kislevite Spirit, not Slaanesh demons, author!) who is actually a Slaaneshi demon. Leshii has convinced them nature is super hardcore and brutal, and that they should totally want to become one with nature by like, using magic to have claws and antlers. They are definitely not slowly turning into Beastmen, no sir. Leshii ensures them they are the Best Elfs, the only elfs who get it, and other elfs wouldn't understand. So they gotta do seductive dances and draw in more elfs to make more Beast-Elfs in 'exotic and exciting' rituals. They also kidnap human women (of loving course, everyone always needs brutalized women) for 'dark purposes' and teach terrible magics to Ungol Hags, because the author despite referencing Realm of the Ice Queen doesn't seem to remember the Hags are devout enemies of Chaos. One would think we might get rules for like, edgy dark beast-elfs. We do not. We are assured they are there, but no rules for them. The elfs have never actually noticed they've become Slaaneshi. Torturing woodsmen to death is a normal activity for Asrai, after all, so they don't really notice they're being asked to do it more. They do get the option to learn Hag magic from Realm of the Ice Queen, but again: This is presented as their dark magic. That isn't how that works! They're also slowly being tricked into freeing a Keeper of Secrets. Silly elfs. I actually like this as an origin of a darker elf group that PCs end up fighting, because elfs seem really vulnerable to being tricked because they assume they're hard to trick. They've got the whole thing going on where they usually think they're on top of and in control of things, so flattering them can be an easy route in for a huckster. Elfs slowly turning themselves into Beast-Elfs to be 'one with nature' because it's 'common sense' is good. You're also invited to make your own magical forest glade! You're given a series of basic questions to answer and invited to make a magical elf-town and its kindreds/kithbands. Now, I happen to have pre-prepared an Asrai community right over here, so I can do this easily. Now mind, I wrote these guys as the origin for a PC in a game that used 'Ariel is a horrible tyrant' as its starting point, but I still think the Glade of Evernight works fine with these questions. It's a little grimmer and a lot poorer than this book intends, but lower class elfs are fun and Hams ability to actually have them is fascinating to me; elfs are normally all rich and secure in most fantasy settings (and are meant to be, mostly, in this book. No elf is really worrying about going hungry in Defenders of the Forest). "Where is it?" Evernight is located on the edges of the Athel Loren, near Parravon. It's one of the outer glades of the Loren elfs. "Why was it settled?" An attempt to expand outward from the inner glades and try to restart some of the Waystone network to get the leylines to supply more power to the outer glades. It failed in this and ended up mostly forgotten by the central government. "Are there other Hinterglades like this one?" Probably too many. The outer parts of the Loren can be a little rough for elfs. "How did history shape their culture? Do they worship the spirits/gods unusually? Which kindreds and professions are dominant?" They're culturally normal Loren Asrai. Their culture is shaped more by their relative poverty than their history; with less magic flowing through the area, it's harder to make the forest give up enough fruit and flesh to sustain everyone while following Ariel's mandates and maintaining the pacts with the forest spirits. The elfs who live here are poor, but try not to complain, and most try to follow the laws and do as they know an Asrai should. More than usual, though, some of them turn to prohibited activities. Smugglers bring elven goods into Bretonnia in exchange for staples, metals, and other things they can trade to keep their families fed. Some elves hunt more than they are permitted, because they don't want to starve. The Dryads are not forgiving when these people are discovered. An unusually large number of the young elves volunteer for the Glade Guard, joining the military to bring food and goods home to their families in Ariel's service. Because of the relatively high rate of people violating their dictates, the Dryads and Bruiadd spirits are regarded with fear; they are viewed as enforcers, not partners. Religion is otherwise normal, and Ariel and Orion are still venerated; the people of Evernight hope that the great Queen will notice and aid their Glade some day, especially if their young soldiers fight bravely. "Who are their main enemies?" Starvation and poverty is a constant problem in harder winters. Fighting that requires people to break the rules in ways they know they shouldn't, as above. They also occasionally make unsanctioned raids on Bretonnia in addition to the smuggling, the Glade's warriors taking what they need. "Who are their main allies?" The military, primarily. The Queen's army does appreciate the patriotism of the Evernight elves and their high rate of enlistment. Some advance in the ranks, and can influence policy to send help home beyond the general bounties awarded to soldiers. "What is their relationship to the local spirits?" They try to evade and trick them, to keep them off their illicit operations, unsanctioned raids, etc. Their allies in the Asrai military are quite helpful with this. "Is the surrounding forest safe?" Generally yes, surprisingly. It just isn't very productive. They don't have especial monster problems because the poor forage means there isn't much for monsters or beastmen to forage off of either; those tend to seek other targets. "What would compel a PC to leave?" Either trying to get away from a life where you sometimes have to eat bark to survive the winters, or trying to find a way to send money and help home to their families. Or just disillusionment in general. "What Kindreds do they join?" Primarily the Kithband Warriors (So Warrior and Scout) and in higher up cases, the Eternal Guard of Queen Ariel. Getting into the Eternal Guard is the dream of many of Evernight's young elves; it's prestigious, you don't go hungry, and the bounty given to your community can be considerable. "What magical traditions are available?" The normal ones for Loren Asrai. Spellsingers are fairly rare in this community, though. "Are there alterations or restrictions on starting careers?" Both Kithbander and various Criminal careers like Rogue, Smuggler, etc should be more common, and the more normal Hinterglade stuff like Pit Fighter and Mercenary should be removed. The people of Evernight still think of themselves as loyal Asrai and try to follow the norms, their struggles just force their hands sometimes. So yeah. The questions can be a little redundant but they're fine for fleshing out a community. I know Evernight is probably not the kind of place the writers had in mind, but the PC it was written for was from a very large family with an unusual split strictly between the military and criminals for her siblings. In fleshing out where Tallana was from, her home became a failed magical network expansion town, with relatively poor forage and material conditions that force the local elfs to live outside of the perfect harmony with nature the propaganda says they ought to have. It made for a compelling failing glade within a larger context of a more authoritarian Loren, so there you go. Next Time: Woody Critters, Dragon Familiar Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:05 on May 4, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 17:37
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That chaos plot (Doomed Kindred) seems overwrought by a bit as the supremacist forest elves would be extremely vulnerable to Slaanesh's path to self perfection, and the loving forest spirits would take absolutely no notice about a cult of growing cruelty to humans.
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May 4, 2020 19:41
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Doing a Trail of Tears to elves also feels wildly out of character for the Empire, in my opinion. Maybe something like that to mutants, but the Empire isn't really that kind of dickish and there's never been any mention, ever, of the Empire doing reservations or colonialism. Feels more like a High elf thing to do.
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May 4, 2020 19:49
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