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Tasoth posted:Alternity's art being awesome doesn't stop there. Both of the alien guides have covers by Brom and the actual illustrations are top notch. God do I love those books. Meanwhile, it's time to do the opposite of April Fool's day tradition and actually write up what I said I would enter the new thread with, plowing straight through the first two chapters of Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age. Excelsior!  Introduction and Chapter 1: A Brief History of Nazi-Punching What is Mutants and Masterminds? Assuming you don't already know about it somehow, Mutants and Masterminds is a d20 system game focused on two things: superheroes, and saying  to the sacred cow of character classes. Instead, you buy your ability scores, skills, feats, and powers with a pool of points alloted to you based on the game's "Power Level". Like Dungeons and Dragons, d20 Modern, and Pathfinder, it has a System Reference Document for all your basic rules needs. That face.  What is "The Golden Age"? Chapter 1 of Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age handily decides to lay down for us the history of the Golden Age, thus explaining what it is to those who are not comic book nerds. The Golden Age is the era of comic books from the first costumed hero in the early 1930s up to an undefined time soon after the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. This is the time where now-famous superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and Namor the Chapter 2: The Golden Age World Just as the first chapter was an overview of the history of comic books during the Golden Age, chapter 2 is an overview of the rest of the world during the Golden Age. A Brief Overview of America at War If you didn't know, there's an obscure event during the Golden Age called "World War II". This first segment covers both that and the Korean War in broad strokes. There is a game-relevant sidebar entitled "They Saved Hitler's Brain!", however, discussing the various ways you could allow the players to have repeated cases of Hitler-punching even after the war is over.  Not quite the World's Finest, but they'll do. The Golden Age and Real-World History It all started with the Great Depression. ...Well, this chapter does, at least, beginning with an overview of how the Great Depression lead into the rise of American Nazis and the Cosa Nostra gangsters, as well as the beginning of World War II. Like how America won the war (and those other guys too I guess). "Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age posted:The combined Axis powers were simply no match for America’s industrial might, which simultaneously kept the Soviet Union equipped, the United Kingdom fed, and buried Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan beneath a rain of steel.  What exactly does all of this mean for your supers game, though? Golden Age has the answers for you. The author is quick to note that you could do a Film Noir-style campaign focused around facing off against La Cosa Nostra, a redemption story of an individual who turned to villainy during the Great Depression seeking to become a hero, old villains becoming new allies against the greater threat of the Axis powers, and having Axis supervillains do over-the-top Golden Age things like breaking a famous Hollywood starlet's legs because mwuahaha evil. Perhaps more interesting than Nazi Punching 101 might be the statements on what to do after WWII ends and the Golden Age begins to wane. The simplest suggestion given is to just replace Nazis with the Red Army as villains, though this might bring up obvious questions about WWII Soviet supers suddenly being treated as the villains. There are also some more interesting suggestions, such as having the enemies present be the extraterrestrials that ushered in the Silver Age of Comics or even McCarthyite finger-poiners hassling the heroes and making their life hell.  Life in the Golden Age Ignoring minor notes such as fashion trends of the time, the biggest elephant in the room of talking about how life was in the time of the Golden Age of Comics is that people were often even more bigoted assholes than they are today. The chaptr proudly tells us that the correct way of playing with this fire is that the truth is in the middle: "Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age posted:The key, as always, is balance. Don’t rant on the Nisei internment camps so much that you forget to include the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. As bad as segregation was, don’t forget to celebrate Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson. It was an age that gave us both Charlie and Joe McCarthy–don’t let either extreme dominate your stories. Most of all, don’t lose sight of the fact that this era–like all others–had its good times and bad times, its heroes and its villains. Even in a roleplaying game about bulletproof super-mutants who can fly, a world that is painted as all good or all bad pushes the bounds of credibility too far "Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age posted:It’s vital for the Gamemaster to remember that roleplaying games are supposed to be fun, not long, nasty historical polemics. Though it may be anachronistic, it’s often better to discard elements of the era’s bigotry than to irritate and offend the players. The rest of the segment is just a look at popular radio and television entertainment, technology, and economics of the time. There's even a table of difficulty checks for obtaining rationed goods if you are that  about the topic.  Heroes in Uniform The final piece of chapter 2 is a brief statement on having an action military campaign set in the Golden Age. This is basically Blackhawks or (for a more modern example) GI Joe: the Campaign. You have above-average but below-superpowered heroes who engage both in action hero-style combat and help rebuild the lives of the people affected by war. There are also statements on crossing such a campaign over into supers territory, such as having a large team of action heroes fight a single war-time supervillain against the odds, introduce Weird Wars-style occult warfare, or the like. --------------------------------------- Next time: Rocketeers, why you can't be a psychic in the Golden Age, maxing out your Hitler-punching stats, and other game rules for the Golden Age.
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Apr 1, 2013 21:59
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Bitchtits McGee posted:For those who came in late: Talents are like highly specialized mini-Feats that you can only take at character creation to supplement your character concept. I, uh, can't think of anything else to say about them, so... Ryuujin posted:See Dimwitted but Mighty kind of sounds fun to play, just like some of the races occasionally sound interesting. But then everything devolves into FIIIIIIIEEEEEEEELLLLDS!! quote:Billy the Yakuza turned curiously at the strange whining sound, and caught an arrow through the throat. As he lost bladder control and crumpled to the ground, he marveled at how little the wound hurt. Billy the Yakuza died without a sound and a brainless look of mild surprise on his face. Within two seconds two other Yakuza leg breakers joined him, their blood lapping against the parked silver H2’s tires like red waves on a red beach. Let's speed away from the topic of Fields, though, to one much more fun: Hitler-punching! Chapter 3: Optimized Hitler-Punching "Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age posted:This chapter will have you slapping the lips off fascist dictactors in no time. As stated before, Mutants and Masterminds uses the concept of "power levels" instead of classes to inform how much points you can buy stuff with. This chapter starts off by noting the different power levels that a Golden Age game will have. Long story short: a fair range of them in multiples of two. Power Level 6 action movie-type heroes, PL 8 "punch stuff really good while wearing tights" heroes, PL 8 Flash/Green Lantern/etc.-type heroes, and PL 12 Superman/Captain Marvel-type heroes are all Golden Age staples, and the book notes that most hero team-ups of the era tended to actually have at least one representative from each power level. These heroes are most likely going to be putting their ranks into physical skills rather than mental skills if you are looking for what the book calls "authentically retro characters". Brawn was supposedly as popular or more popular than brains in heroes of the time...or so this book tells us, at least. Feats There is a brief skills section in this title, but it is pretty much just a note that the Computer Use is nerfed to hell in the Golden Age and that the Survival skill can be - gasp - used in urban environments to scavenge things rather than just in the wilderness to find nuts and berries. As for feats, they start out wit an exemplary list of exemptions. Want to be exempt from the draft? Take a feat. Want to be exempt from rationing rules? Take a feat. Want to have positive rather than negative amounts of wealth? Tak-you get the idea. There is also a feat you can take to have a beneficial military rank, one for driving a vehicle in combat without screwing things up, and one for flying a plane in combat without similarly screwing things up. Powers Yet again, we have a section that begins with talk about what is and is not good for the "authentically retro character". First off is a no-go on psychic powers and anything too super-sciencey. Why? According to the author of this little tome, the first is because mesmerism was almost always a villain trait in the Golden Age, while the second is because kids at the time were unlikely to understand what things like vibrating super-speed or spatial distortion were. I'm sure that obscure Golden Age heroes known as the Flash and Dr. Occult might disagree on at least two of those points. Second, you should have powers related to punching things. Punching things is always better in the Golden Age. Third, you should only have a few drawbacks, if any, as the heroes of the time were meant to be larger than life. As for new powers, there aren't any. Sorry if you wanted some. Devices and Equipment This section doesn't really have much in the way of new material so much as classifying what would and wouldn't be common weapons or vehicles in the Golden Age. it does, however, have this image that could not be skipped:  Broncosaurus Rex is over, yet the Confederates still refuse to stop following me.  Hero Archetypes Last, but not least, are some free archetypes for you to use. These can be used as either NPCs, pre-made PCs, or as springboards for your own character designs. We have - in total in M&M: Golden Age:
========================================== Next time: Stats for Hitler, evil aliens, fly-Cthulhu, and more in the Game Master's chapter.
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Apr 6, 2013 13:43
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Serperoth posted:Every WWII tank was a lovely tank compared to Hobart's Funnies.  Alien Rope Burn posted:It's just a copy-paste of the "trait" mechanic from Pathfinder. I imagine he just uses a different name because he can't use the Pathfinder Compatibility License on products like that.
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Apr 7, 2013 00:56
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Chapter 4: That Hitler you're supposed to punch Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age posted:While it's important to keep in mind the actual history of the era, its many complexities should not be allowed to get in the way of true Good, pure Evil, and their chosen costumed representatives.   The discussion of superpowers and sidekicks are similarly colored very specifically. Heroes prefer to just punch people rather than actively use their powers if they can, while sidekicks are meant to either accentuate the hero or be doofy comic relief. The book seems to be unsure as to what to do about comic relief characters, though. One the one hand, they discuss how comic relief sidekicks and characters were really popular in the Golden Age to draw the attention of kids. On the other, it drones on repeatedly about how stolen slapstick gags and casual racism were the main repertoire of such characters and probably don't work for a modern audience. If you really, really want to play Watchmen, though, don't feel left out. The book is here for your Alan Moore needs as well. The suggestion is more or less "don't do as we said earlier": swap out the patriotic longjohns for nationalist dicks, have lots of crime and violence, showcase the racism and bigotry of the time, and go get the Iron Age sourcebook.  Supporting Cast Archetypes Or, as other games like to call them, generic NPCs. Let's take a look at them, shall we?
 "Ha ha! Questionable art originality." Villain Archetypes Like hero archetypes, but with villains.
--------------------------------------------- Next time: The Golden Age in M&M's Freedom City setting.
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Apr 13, 2013 20:56
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While having pretty average stats, he's crunched into the min-maxing cookie, putting an overly large amount of points into Intimidate and Perform (Oratory) and buying feats that let him compel people without actually having a high Charisma score. The flavor text also basically says to do whatever you want to the stats presented, from villainous superpowers to having minions and gear beyond what a character of his low Power Level could conceivably buy.
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Selachian posted:So I take it a lot of the art in this book is swipes/pastiches from original Golden Age comics? Bieeardo posted:Mutants and Masterminds has done that a lot.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:52
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Bitchtits McGee posted:Innocent (D7ACU: The Innocent, Skortched Urf Studios, 2007, but I ain't buyin' that one) The Innocent is an advanced class (a 10-level prestige class in D&D terms) said to be the result of children that are whimsically touched by fey, elves, or kitsunes. The character is basically an adult-child that can change their age category at will and learns such class features as magic that cannot be used to kill unless you spend an action point, a de-aging touch attack, and the crafting of clockwork soldiers. In the hands of someone actually not insane, the idea of a trickster figure coming from a "forever young" idealist could be interesting, but this is Fields.
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Apr 15, 2013 21:06
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All this talk of AD&D makes me wish Wizards of the Coast would release PDF versions faster. They have already started repopulating 3E and AD&D titles into the PDF circuit, but a lot of things I'd personally love to get a hold of such as The Sea Devils are still in the pipes. Of course, I'd really love a release of some of their non-D&D property in PDF form as well, especially Alternity and d20 Modern. That's quite unrelated to my current review, though, so let's get on track. Chapter 5: Hitler-Punching in Freedom City Freedom City is the de facto setting Mutants and Masterminds plays in. I don't have the Freedom City Sourcebook, however, so I'm afraid it's a bit of a SOL situation as far as that field goes. I'll try to deal with the Golden Age Freedom City chapter nonetheless. In Freedom City's Golden Age, the proliferation of supers goes from occult figures in Germany and Japan to the first costumed fighters in America and then to costumed fighters across the board. The first superhero team, the Liberty League, gets founded in 1941 by Roosevelt himself. The actual events of World War II are pretty much the same as in real life, as are those of the Korean War. The end of the Freedom City Golden Age is marked by the disbanding of the Liberty League and growing fear of a secret invasion by the shapeshifting extraterrestrial  The Liberty League
 The Allies of Freedom
Other Allied Heroes A collection of heroes that either just use archetype stats or were in the Freedom City Sourcebook. The only noteworthy one to me is Codename Kilroy, a character using the Master of Disguise archetype who was known for leaving his eponymous symbol all around the warzones of the world as he traveled.  Die Übersoldaten Just as the Liberty League is the main All-American Allies squad, Die Übersoldaten is the primary Axis supervillain team.
 Hinomaru The Japanese equivalent of the Übersoldaten. They are less stocked with supervillains than most, as the book states the Nazi occultists weren't really keen on sharing and the magic aura of Japan itself seemed opposed to the Axis.
Other Golden Age Villains This brief list has no actual stats (or either use archetypes or only have stats in the Freedom City Sourcebook), so it's pretty much just a collection of ideas if you don't want to have Japanese or German foes or are on the very early or very late ends of the Golden Age.
Chapter 6: A Hitler-Void Adventure The final full and proper chapter of Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age is an adventure. Since I'm not really the adventure type, I'll just sum it up briefly as "that adventure where --------------------------- Next time: We finish off Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age with the Field Battle System Rules appendix and final thoughts.
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Apr 21, 2013 04:49
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Evil Mastermind posted:The "current" Freedom League does have the next-generation versions of Johnny Rocket and Siren. According to the Freedom City sourcebook (the first edition of which is probably the best superhero citybook I've ever read), Dr. Tomorrow vanished three days after VJ Day in 1945, and Centurion died fighting Omega, the setting's Darkseid-equivalent.  ", though, so I didn't really take the time to write them down.The only really noteworthy one is that apparently the second Crimson Katana may have made a new blade out of the Human Tank's corpse.  Appendix: Group Fighting The final bit of Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age is the Field Battle Rules. The FBR is a system set up to allow for a handful of heroes to fight entire armies without having so many foes you lose your marbles keeping the tab on hundreds of NPCs. It does this by condensing a whole group of individuals into a single stat block whose power is based on several factors. Unit size ranges from a squad of 10 inividuals to an army of 20,000 to 50,000, providing a "Force modifier" of +3 to +14 depending on size to attack, damage, and Toughness, while the quality of a unit – green, trained, or veteran – has its own specific bonus to the attack, damage, Toughness, Defense, Initiative, and Morale of the unit. It's not the only mass combat rules Green Ronin Publishing has done, but it's probably the most straightforward. Final Thoughts Mutants and Masterminds: Golden Age in a nutshell: it certainly isn't a bad sourcebook, but it caters to a very specific crowd. It's for the crowd who wants data on the Golden Age or military feats and rules. It's not for someone who wants to do a faux-Golden Age like Watchmen unless they happen to also have Iron Age, it's not for people who want a lot of shiny new powers, and it's definitely not for people who can't take a fair amount of cheese and homages. ---------------------------------------------------------- Next time: Well, there's a fair amount I want to do sooner and later. D&D in World War II, a myriad of post-apocalyptic settings, Japanese monsters, extraterrestrials, Maztica, maybe something from GURPS, the list goes on and on... I should probably finish up what I started and do the bestiary for Supernatural: the RPG first, though.
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Apr 21, 2013 21:30
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The fact that Fields is one of the only people still publishing to-purchase d20 Modern supplements on a large scale depresses me far more than it should.  Somewhat less depressing is that I am going to be finishing up the Supernatural: the Roleplaying Game series with this next readthrough. There was technically a third book published, but it's an adventure book that I don't own and I'll freely admit I kind of hate reviewing adventures anyway.  Introducing the Bestiary The Guide to the Hunted acts as the bestiary for Supernatural: the Roleplaying Game. In this book, the brief archetypes from the core rulebook and some of the monsters that just weren't covered at all, even a handful that never actually appeared in the show. It also happens to be an "in-voice" book like the core rulebook. Rather than trying to sound like Dean Winchester, however, The Guide to the Hunted is meant to be written by...the Ghostfacers. If you have ever watched the show, you know why this can get really grating at points. For those who haven't watched the show, let's sum it up as "don't let bit part comic relief characters write a sourcebook". I'll be giving a brief note on the folklore (if any) behind the creature, its in-game statistics, and what episode of the show (if any) it appeared in, just as a bit of added flavor beyond minor entries. Chapter 1: Restless Spirits Given just how much Supernatural uses the undead, it's pretty unsurprising that the very first chapter of the RPG's bestiary, filling out entries beyond the Spirit and Zombie stats that appeared in the core rulebook. Angiak The Lore: A creature from Inuit mythology, the angiak is a vampiric revenant "born" when an unnamed and unwanted child dies in the cold. The Guide to the Hunted goes farther and states that all mythology of undead children are the angiak, from the Serbian drekavac and Scandinavian myling to undead dumpster babies and the creepy ghost kids in Japanese pop culture. The Game: The poor angiak has pretty poo poo stats across the board. To be fair, though, it's just a kid, albeit a creepy undead one, so it's not too harsh to give it a low score. The only ace in the hole the angiak has is its Vitality drain attack, which it likes to do when its victims - always either the mother that abandoned it or women that look close enough for its murderous tastes - are asleep. The Show: The angiak was mentioned in season 1, episode 14: Nightmare, but never actually appeared. Banshee The Lore: Perhaps one of the most famous death omens in history, the banshee is a classic Irish myth. Just what the banshee does varies from tale to tale, though she always causes death either through being an omen or just outright murdering. The Game: The banshee is a tough customer. She has two forms - that of a beautiful woman, and that of a spectral hag. In the former, she has the Allure character trait and uses her wiles to lure men in with her beautiful song. In the latter, she has the Fugly character trait and can use her keening wail to attempt to scare the man into committing suicide. If scare tactics don't work, she can go straight for spectral claw attacks that do a pretty good chunk of damage. The Show: Like the angiak, the banshee only got a passing mention in season 1 of the television program. She did, however, get a bit more than the angiak in that she appeared in the Supernatural novel Nevermore. Bloody Mary The Lore: The Bloody Mary tale is a pretty drat famous urban legend. Even growing up in a hugely fundamentalist household in the deep south, I heard of her. In the Supernatural universe, the legend is added to by the in-show lore that anyone named Mary who dies under the right circumstances while near a mirror can transform into a Bloody Mary. The Game: Mary's not quite as statistically powerful as a banshee, but she does have her special attack of eye liquefaction. If you are keeping a secret about an unsolved death, Mary can will your eyes to start gushing blood, dealing d6 Wound damage each time she succeeds. If you aren't keeping such a secret, the best she can do is use her creepiness to scare you off. All in or all out. The Show: Bloody Mary was the star of season 1, episode 5: Bloody Mary. She also appeared in an episode of the subpar anime adaptation of the show, where she got an extreme power boost and the ability to teleport through any reflective surface, including Sam's corneas. Buru Buru The Lore: In Japanese mythology, the buru buru (an onomatopoeia for shivering) is the ghost of a creepy old man that follows you in graveyards and can chill you or cause you to die from fright. In Supernatural, it's pretty similar, being the ghost of a person who died in extreme terror and capable of spreading a disease that causes death by fear. The Game: Buru buru aren't so much a threat themselves as a means to an end. That end is ghost sickness, a paranormal disease that transmits to any person who is similar in personality to the individual that killed the buru buru in question. An infected individual gets increasingly more and more frightened and paranoid, and after 48 hours gets to start those always popular save-or-die rolls. Sending off the buru buru is the only way to dispel the ghost sickness. The Show: A buru buru appeared in season 4, episode 6: Yellow Fever. Ghost Vehicles The Lore: Ghostly vehicles are something that crops up in various folklore around the world. From ghostly taxis in New Orleans to ghost ships in all of the oceans of the world, it seems that metal is just as prone to undeath as flesh. The Game: If you couldn't guess, the mental stats of a person get combined with the physical attributes of a vehicle. This means that you've got the vengeful mental fuel of a spirit behind the large and tough-to-down frame of a vehicle. They also tend not to respond to the normal anti-ghost measures of burning their human body or striking them with iron. The Show: The infamous season 1, episode 13: Route 666 gave us Cyrus Dorian, better known as Racist Truck. It's basically become the biggest butt of a joke for the show, with the episode even being referred to in-universe as "Racist Truck". Hook Man The Lore: The Hook Man is an urban legend up there with Bloody Mary in its popularity and influence. The Game: With decent stats and a very damaging metal hook for a hand, the Hook Man is a tough brawler who uses his Willpower and Unarmed Combat buffs to toss people around like rag dolls. The Show: Jacob Karns, the "original Hook Man" appeared in season 1, episode 7: Hookman. Indeed, Karns is the model for the stats given in this book. Since the Winchesters killed him, though, I guess the assumption is that other Hook Men copycat ghosts happen to exist as well. Poltergeist The Lore: The poltergeist - "noisy ghost" - is the bog standard ghost. They are prone to having telekinetic temper tantrums, throwing items around. The Game: A poltergeist has average stats and not much to go on besides weak spectral claws and telekinesis. The Show: The Studio 9 ghosts, which The Guide to the Hunted touts as the best example poltergeists, appeared in season 2, episode 18: Hollywood Babylon. One could probably point out an number of non-uniqu ghosts that appear in Spernatural as being poltergeists, though, so it's hard to really give an episode count. Rawhead The Lore: Also known as Bloody Bones, Rawhead and Bloody Bones, or Tommy Rawhead, rawheads are unpleasant creatures with raw skin and a taste for children. They live in wet areas such as damp cellars or marl pits. The Game: The rawhead is very much an introductory spirit. With low to average attribute scores, bite and claw damage that is mild at best, and a weakness to electricity, it's safe to say that rawheads aren't the top dogs of the undead. The Show: A rawhead briefly appears at the start of season 1, episode 12: Faith, where it is swiftly executed by Dean so the Winchester brothers can get on to the actual plot. Tulpa The Lore: Tulpas are though-forms from Tibetan lore, basically an idea made manifest. They become independent from their creator and can range from jovial to murderous depending on just what ideas were implemented in their creation. The Game: A tulpa is another lower-key spirit at first glance, as it has mostly average attributes besides a slightly above-average Alertness attribute. The real danger comes in the fact that the tulpa gets a pretty strong Spirit trait and whatever skills the believers that created it feel it should, which means it can actually be a bit more dangerous than you'd think. The Show: The brutal tulpa Mordechai Murdoch was the focus of season 1, episode 17: Hell House. Water Wraith The Lore: If it's cold, deep, and dangerous, bodies of water tend to build up a reputation for unsavory spirits that drown peope. The Guide to the Hunted classifies water wraiths as anything from the Russian rusalka to the Japanese kappa, taking many shapes and forms. The Game: While not exactly strong in attributes, water wraiths are capable of powerful grapples boosted even further by being in water that allow them to attempt to drown opponents. Since this Grapple skill is meant to be directly opposed by an Athletics (Swimming) skill, one can The Show: A water wraith appeared in season 1, episode 3: Dead in the Water. Witness The Lore: No connection to real life folklore, as these guys are entirely from the Supernatural-verse. They are ashen ghosts of people you killed that rise at the End of Days, when one of the seals keeping Lucifer held back is broken. I can only assume this means that the game designers figured you might be playing a game set at the exact moment when the seal is broken. The Game: Fighting witnesses sucks. They have average to above-average attributes, powerful spirit traits, strong fists, stealth, and intimidation out the wazoo. And to make things worse, the only way you can kill them is by performing a ritual that requires very specific rare ingredients and Formidable rank roll of the Intelligence attribute and Knowledge (Religion) skill. The Show: The rise of the witnesses was the subject of season 4, episode 2: "Are you there, God? It's me, Dean Winchester". The Ghostfacers Stats for the Ghostfacers themselves. For some reason the book decides to switch back to Dean-o-speech to mock the Ghostfacers group, presumably to avoid having the Ghostfacers taut themselves as being really cool instead. Their stats don't really matter at all, though it is probably the only example of seeing a stat block in this game that actually has the Video Games skill. The Ghost-Centric Campaign The final portion of chapter 1 is a vignette on running a campaign entirely centered around restless spirits. Long story short: lots of history, lots of research, be a very clue-focused campaign runner. ---------------------------------------------------- Next time: chapter 2, Angels and Demons.
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Apr 23, 2013 02:48
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Zereth posted:... Ghoul paladins? EDIT: Well, drat, just Antipaladins. Chapter 2, part 1: Demons The denizens of two of the three other dimensions that exist in Supernatural, angels and demons are two sides of an eternal struggle: Heaven versus Hell, creation by God versus corruption of humanity, and cold logic versus twisted passion. Of course, if you're human, neither side is really a good option in the end. Sure, demons like to do horribly twisted things, but angels have a tendency to put on the jackboots with little justification. We'll be covering demons first, as they had a cursory glance given to them in the core rulebook while angels are entirely new to the Guide to the Hunted. A lot of this section consists of "these are demons that the Winchesters killed, but here are their stats anyway just in case you want them to return somehow or feature them in a campaign set in the early seasons" until it gets to the non-unique demon species rather than individuals. Azazel The Lore: In Judaism, Azazel is basically the spiritual garbage man, a demon of the wastes that takes the scapegoat of Passover. In Supernatural, however, his role is much more prominent. He is presented as "the Yellowed-Eyed Demon", a mastermind who managed to kickstart the prelude to the Apocalypse before being felled by the Winchesters. The Game: Azazel has it all - amazing attribute scores, a powerful Pyrokinesis skill, the highest Telekinesis skill die possible in the game, and high levels of intimidation. Exorcism is the only way to temporarily put him out of commission, and the only way to end him for sure is with one of the major plot weapons of the show. The Show: Azazel was the primary villain in the myth arc that covered the first two seasons of Supernatural. Alastair The Lore: Alastair is not a real world demon, but presumably draws his name from the real world occultist Aleister Crowley. The Game: Just like Azazel, Alastair has top percentile attribute scores and the highest Telekinesis possible. He also has an insanely high Interrogation skill, which he combines with his telekinesis for torture sessions. His arrogance and short temper are pretty much his only weaknesses. The Show: Alastair appeared in four episodes of season 4 as the top torturer and servant of Lilith. He was killed by psychic godmode powers. Lilith The Lore: According to old Hebrew lore, Lilith was the first woman. She was replaced by Eve when she had the  desire to be equals with Adam, and became a demon of the winds.The Game: Lilith is the demon for those who think that Azazel just wasn't tough enough. Not only does she have exemplary attributes and highest possible Telekinesis, she also has the highest possible Pyrokinesis. So uniquely high, in fact, that it gives her a special explosive AoE called Pyrokinetic Blast. The Show: Lilith replaced Azazel as the big myth arc threat for season 3 and 4. Like her lackey Alastair, she was axed by psychic godmode powers as the last step in getting Lucifer walking the earth. Ruby The Lore: Ruby is a demon that is obviously entirely unique to Supernatural. Her job was as the agent and instigator of the plot to raise Lucifer. The Game: While her attributes are 'merely' above-average, Ruby makes up for it in having high skill with knife combat and acting. She is meant to be more of a subterfuge-oriented challenge than a physical combat one. The Show: Ruby was a common sight through seasons 3 and 4 of the show before being killed with her own demon-killing knife after her true nature was revealed. Samhain The Lore: Samhain is the name of the great Celtic festival of the final pre-winter harvest, as well as the origin of Halloween. As in many forms of media, Supernatural personified Samhain as a specific entity rather than a holiday: namely, a powerful demon. The Game: Samhain has low Alertness to mar his otherwise high attribute scores, but he makes up for it by being bloodthirsty and having the highest-tier Telekinesis and decent Unarmed Combat skills one comes to expect from greater demons in this game. He also has the ability to summon other supernatural creatures, which is in and of itself a definite danger sign. On the other hand, wearing even the most simple of masks keeps Samhain from seeing you, which kind of lessens his impact. The Show: Samhain appeared in season 4, episode 7: "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester". Unlike most of the other demons presented, Samhain could actually be used legally in your campaign, as he was exorcised back to Hell in his one appearance rather than being outright killed. The Seven Deadly Sins The Lore: Greed, Lust, Sloth, Wrath, Gluttony, Envy, Pride. Surely you've heard of these guys a few times. The Game: While somewhat average on most fronts, the Seven Deadly Sins have a whopping d12 Mind Control skill that allows them to force their sinful ways onto humans. The Show: The Seven Deadly Sins appeared in season 3, episode 1: The Magnificent Seven. Envy, Lust, Sloth, and Wrath were exorcised back to Hell, while the others were killed by Ruby in her first appearance as a way of showing off her fancy demon-killing knife. Given the nature of sin, however, one could presume even killing one of the Seven won't keep them gone forever. Tammi The Lore: Tammi is another Supernatural-original demon. She is a collector of souls lured in by dark sorcery, taking normal people and training them in the ways of demon-fueled black magic. The Game: Tammi is mostly an average demon, save for high impersonation skills and powerful magic. She also happens to be weak to magic, dark or otherwise, which means the best way to fight her is with a dose of her own medicine. The Show: Tammi appeared in season 3, episode 9: Malleus Maleficarum. She was killed by Ruby's knife. Tom The Lore: Yet another demon original to Supernatural, Tom is the son of Azazel. The Game: Tom is a mostly average demon, but pushes his brawling skills to the top with both skills and traits focused on making things suffer when he gets into a melee fight. The Show: Tom was featured in the final two episodes of the very first season of the show. He was killed by the magic kills-anything Colt revolver, back when that was actually a thing the show used. Acheri The Lore: The spirit known as the acheri is a bringer of sickness in Indian mythology, said to come down from the Himalayas to spread disease in the lowlands. The Game: Acheri aren't particularly bright, having the lowest possible Intelligence score and a low Willpower to boot. They make up for this by being very fast, very strong, and capable of doing a lot of damage with their wickedly sharp claws before spreading disease. The Show: An acheri was summoned during the battle royale of season 2, episode 21: Hell Breaks Loose Part One. Crossroads Demon The Lore: Crossroads and bargains with beings from them are common across multiple cultures. The Game: A crossroads demon has high overall attributes, but has low Telekinesis and no real combat skills to speak of. Instead, all of its skills are high-die social ones, allowing words to do the deed for the demon. The Show: After being introduced in season 2, episode 8: Crossroad Blues, crossroads demons have appeared in every season since. Daeva The Lore: Daevas are hostile demons from the Zoroastrian religion, not to be confused with the benevolent devas of Hinduism. The Game: A daeva has amazing physical attributes, which helps them to deal insane amounts of damage with their claws. In addition, they are swift and made of shadows, making them decidedly stealthy. On the other hand, daevas have two obvious weaknesses: light and breaking the altar used to summon them. The Show: A summoned daeva was the foe of season 1, episode 16: Shadow. Hellhound The Lore: Hellhounds are demonic dogs, often with associations to fire or darkness, from British folklore. The Game: A hellhound has the lowest possible Intelligence die score, obviously, but has average Willpower and high physical attributes. It also has insanely high stealth and combat skills that allow it to sneak up to you and tear you apart with its jaws. It's pretty hard to fight something that's invisible, after all. The Show: While hellhounds in the show are dispatched by crossroads demons to collect the souls of those damned by crossroads deals, they are surprisingly less prevalent overall. Hellhounds have appeared in nine episodes scattered over seasons 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8. ------------------------------------------------------- Next time: the lowdown from those on high with the introduction of angels.
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Apr 25, 2013 03:21
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Chapter 2, Part 2: Angels and Other Higher Powers Angels With season 4 of Supernatural, the angels were revealed in opposition to the demons, and it was with this mostly season 4-oriented sourcebook that the angels were given stats for the Supernatural RPG. On an overall level, angels are rather similar to demons. They possess a human vessel, boosting their physical attributes (Strength and Vitality in particular, Agility less so) and replacing their mental attributes with the angel's own. Rather than dying like mortals or leaving their vessel like demons do, an angel that takes too much wound damage auto-poofs away unless they are hit by a celestial blade, the one weapon that can truly kill them. They also gain their own unique traits that human or other supernatural characters don't have in addition to more standard ones such as Telekinesis:
As for actual angel stats, they're all of named angels from the show: Anna Milton, Castiel, Uriel, and Zachariah. Suffice to say, three of them are dead, one of them is the Winchesters' best buddy most of the time, and they all have rather similar traits, so I'd say it's not really worth going over their statistics. Reapers For some reason, reapers are included in this chapter as a brief note before one more special angel gets discussed. Long story short, they have the Spirit trait and lack physical attribute scores just like ghosts, and don't really fight so much as wait and take people's souls to the afterlife. Lucifer The big fallen archangel himself, Lucifer was the main villain of season 5 of Supernatural before the Winchesters put him back in the Pit. Like the other archangels (for the most part), Luci doesn't get any stats, being more of a frightful force of nature than a presence the players could fight if he somehow managed to get back out of the Pit. The Heaven vs. Hell Campaign Like the ghost-centric campaign, the angels and demons-centric campaign is more about learning your enemy than fighting. Sure, some demons might be taken out in action scenes, but it's meant to be played as humans being toys in the middle of a war between two paranormal powerhouses from other planes of existence. ------------------------------------------------------ Next time: chapter 3, Gods and Monsters, where things start to get far off the beaten path of established Supernatural foes.
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Apr 29, 2013 02:01
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Chapter 3: Gods and Monsters This chapter is dedicated to basically everything that isn't a spirit or from the Big Upstairs/Downstairs and has the most non-show creatures of any of the chapters as well. The title calls them "cryptids", even though that term has a more specific use than just "monster", but whatever. The chapter also has the gods, which the author explains the reasoning for: The Guide to the Hunted posted:Now, you might think that your average pagan forest deity belongs in the same crowd as demons and angels, and you might be right. But in our experience, one man’s god is another man’s immortal cryptid with a narcissistic personality and too much spare time. If it ain’t from Heaven or Hell, some hunters say, then it’s just another bogeyman In seriousness, though, this does admittedly fit in with the spirit of the show. Supernatural has proved time and time again that if somebody has worshipped it and it's not the Abrahamic god, the Winchesters (or, in the case of the infamous episode Hammer of the Gods, Lucifer) can and will kill it. Before getting into actual monsters, there are a few new monster-unique traits given, just as the angels got new tricks.
Changeling The Lore: If you didn't know, fairies in old folklore are complete assholes. One of the many dick moves in their arsenal is replacing a human baby with a changeling, a fairy that looked like the stolen child but had the intellect and often creepy nature of the fairies. In Supernatural, however, they're weird lamprey-faced monsters who abduct children and replace them so they can suck on their parents' precious essences. The Game: While they have average Strength (or above-average in the case of adult changelings) combined with high Vitality and Alertness, their Agility and Willpower attribute scores are low and their Intelligence attribute is at the abysmal bottom of the barrel. They don't really need to be smart, though, as they have a hefty dose of skill dice put into Covert-Disguise and Influence-Persuasion. They are also incapable of being killed by any type of damage other than fire, even forming into two new changelings if you attempt to bisect one. The only saving grace is that their true forms are revealed in reflective surfaces and killing the adult of a changeling nest gets rid of all of the slimy suckers at once. The Show: A nest of changelings appeared as the main monsters o season 3, episode 2: The Kids are Alright. Chupacabra The Lore: El chupacabras, "the sucker of goats" - pretty much always Anglicized as "chupacabra" with no S - is a vampiric monster from Latin folklore since at least 1995, though some have claimed that reports existed even earlier than that. The original reports are of a Gray alien-like figure with spikes running down its back that may or may not have patagia for gliding, while in the good old US of A the legend has mutated to instead have hairless coyote-like canines as the chupa's true form. Supernatural: the Roleplaying Game goes with the former but adds its own twist, stating that all chupacabras are from the de Luyandos, a Puerto Rican family that have been cursed with the chupacabra form after an occultist in their family tried to skimp out on a crossroads demon deal. The Game: In their cursed form, chupacabras have high Agility, above-average Vitality, Strength, and Alertness, but have lower-than-average Intelligence. Their armored hides and extreme speed and athleticisim make them hard to hit, but they typically try to go right in for the kill anyway. A chupacabra that doesn't feed on blood regularly suffers damage from a rare virulent form of lymphoma that plagues the de Luyando family. The Show: Chupacabras are mentioned twice in the series - season 2, episode 3: Bloodlust and season 4, episode 6: Yellow Fever - but never actually seen or fought by the Winchesters. This allowed for the RPG creators to go insane with their creative side, at least. Crocotta The Lore: The crocotta is a creature from Roman legend, described by everybody's favorite crazy naturalist Pliny as a wolf-dog with teeth that can break through anything and the ability to mimic human voices, and was most likely inspired by hyenas. Supernatural decided to add the ability to take human form just to make them a bit more dangerous. The Game: In addition to shapeshifting and voice mimicry, the crocotta has the ability of "Psychotelephony", allowing it to speak through telephones and computers, even if they are not plugged in, not on a network, or actually just toys that look like a phon or computer. Its attributes are nothing to write home about, being either average or just above average, but its social skills and aforementioned supernatural powers make it a dangerous foe to those who can't Willpower roll their way out of danger. The Show: A crocotta was the main villain of season 3, episode 14: Long-Distance Call. Djinn The Lore: Genies, the beings of smokeless fire, who you have probably heard of in at least some capacity. They are somewhat nerfed in Supernatural, going from beings of cosmic power on a level similar to angels and demons to instead being blood-suckin monsters that have a hallucinogenic poison that puts the sufferer into a dream state of their greatest desire. The Game: Djinn have average Intelligence and above-average...well, everything else. They're also ageless, knowledgeable, and have a decent skill with the old fisticuffs. They pretty much always attempt to get into a grapple to release their poison. Most damage is reduced from Wound to Stun, with the exception of a silver blade dipped in the blood of a lamb. The Show: Djinn have appeared in four episodes of the show, the first and most memorable appearance being in season 2, episode 20: What Is and What Should Never Be. Ghoul The Lore: In Arabic folklore, the ghoul is a vile shapeshifting genie that feasts on the corpses of the dead and the unwary living alike, being capable of taking many forms from hyena to human. The versions in Supernatural have no direct connection to genies and have a very specific form of shapeshifting in the form of taking the guise of the last person they have eaten. The Game: Ghouls have the attribute scores of the person they impersonate, with the exception of having a supremely high Agility score thanks to their flexible bones and swift reflexes. They also have ESP, a good amount of stealth and personal skills, and fast healing. The only way to put them down for good is to destroy their brain one way or another, which is still easier than most of the rather convoluted ways you have to kill monsters in the Supernatural RPG. The Show: Ghouls were the main villains of season 4, episode 19: Jump the Shark, and made a brief later appearance in season 6, episode 10: Caged Heat. Jersey Devil The Lore: The Jersey Devil is one of those popular pieces of old American folklore, a horrendous demon-like creature that supposedly dwells in the New Jersey pine barrens. Supernatural: the RPG decided to actually tie it to another legend entirely. In this book, the Jersey Devil is deemed to be a manitou, Algonquin spirits of many forms of creation. The Game: The Jersey devil is kind of dense, having low Intelligence, but makes up for it by having very high physical attributes, traits that let it move fast and take a lot of damage, amazing stealth and survival skills, and brutal claw attacks. It is also pretty much immortal - you can get enough Stun points on it to down it for a while and a member of the Lenape (Delaware) tribe can use an ancient Native American ritual to banish the manitou, but the only way to kill it is by cutting down its Life Points with a special and very hard to make consecrated Lenape weapon. The Show: The Jersey Devil has never appeared in Supernatural, but was used as a red herring for the actual (and far more stupid) monster of season 7, episode 9: How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters. Mothman The Lore: Mothman was a freakish winged humanoid entity that terrified the residents of Point Pleasant in 1966 and 1967. As with the Jersey Devil, Supernatural: the RPG decided to fuse it with another monster. To be more accurate, with monsters - it declares Mothman to be part of an entire species of interdimensionl winged humanoids that also include the garuda of Hinduism and Buddhism, the harpies of Greece, and the tengu of Japan. The Game: Mothman and others of its kind have entirely above-average attribute scores, induce fear in animals and humans, have multiple forms of precognitive abilities, can tirelessly fly at nearly 100 miles per hour, and possess rather sharp claws. On the plus side, it doesn't really want to fight so much as get back to its home in the space-between-spaces, but its disorientation from crossing dimensions unwillingly has made it a bit ornery. The Show: Mothman has never been seen or mentioned in the show, nor have the garuda, harpy, or tengu. Rakshasa The Lore: Rakshasas are a supernatural warrior race from Hinduism, having man various forms and usually being both magically adept and rather evil. The Game: Rakshasas have above-average Agility, Vitality, and Willpower combined with a supremely high Intelligence attribute score, making it a swift and clever foe. It also has limited invisibility - that is, it suffers a point of Stun damage every turn it stays invisible, meaning that it must eventually go visible or pass out - as well as claws with a poison that deals 1 point of Stun damage each time it hits a foe. Furthermore, like so many monsters in Supernatural: the Roleplaying Game, the rakshasa does not take Wound damage unless you use a very specific weapon, in this case one made out of brass. The Show: A rakshasa was the villain of season 2, episode 2: Everybody Loves a Clown. Rugaru The Lore: The rugaru, or rougarou, is a Louisiana folktale of a cursed werewolf-like creature with vampiric tendencies and a fear of frogs and church bells. The version from Supernatural is instead a genetic mutation that leads to tremendous hunger for raw meat and a transformation into a raw-skinned cannibal if the rugaru eats human flesh. The Game: The rugaru has human stats with a +1 die size increase to all attributes except for Intelligence, which instead gets decreased by 3 die sizes. They also have keen senses of smell and strong punches, as well as fast healing that is bypassed by fire. Not the toughest monster in the game by far, but still at least a bit of a challenge for weaker hunters. The Show: Rugaru appear or are mentioned in five episodes, with their very first appearance and full-on starring role being in season 4, episode 4: Metamorphosis. Sasquatch The Lore: Good old Bigfoot. Well, sort of. The name of this entry is a red herring, as it's actually about draugr, a form of undead from Norse mythology. Again, sort of. Basically, this entry is about an elemental force animating the fused body of an animal and a human that the book decides to call both draugr and sasquatch for some reason. The Game: The draugr-sasquatch-elemental-thing is not particularly bright, but makes up for it by having Strength and Vitality attribute scores into superhumanly high die sizes. It's also swift, intimidating, and tough, and fire or ripping it apart is pretty much the only way to destroy the body for good. And even when you destroy the body, the elemental spirit that animated it will just hang around for a few decades until it finds a new suitable corpse combo. The Show: Sasquatch has been mentioned in the show a few times, but always as an example of one of the very few paranormal entities that doesn't exist in Supernatural's lore. I guess that's why the RPG's creators decided to find a very weird way around that. Siren The Lore: In Greek mythology, sirens were bird-women that lured sailors to their doom with their melodic songs. In the Supernatural universe, they are instead corpse-like creatures with a glamor effect and euphoric mind control saliva. The Game: The only high attribute score sirens have is Intelligence, the rest being either average or (in the case of Strength) below average. They do, however, have very high social skills and the whole saliva thing. Like many monsters we've seen before, they can convert damage from Wound to Stun unless it's a specific type of damage, the specific type in this case being a bronze dagger that has been coated in the blood of the siren's current love slave. The Show: A siren was the main antagonist of season 4, episode 14: Sex and Violence. Skinwalker The Lore: Skinwalkers are from various Native American mythologies, individuals that can take on the form of an animal by wearing its pelt. This is what Supernatural: the RPG treats them as, while when they eventually appeared in the television show they were more or less just werewolves capable of shifting at will and maintaining their reasoning. The Game: The skinwalker is a human with psychic powers, knowledge of using a paralytic heart-affecting poison called corpse powder, and being able to take on an animal's physical attributes combined with their mental attributes by shapeshifting. They don't have resistance or "Wound to Stun" immunity when it comes to damage, but do have a specific weapon that hurts them even mroe tahn other weapons - anything doused in white ash. The Show: Skinwalkers appeared in season 6, episode 8: All Dogs go to Heaven. Since this book was written during season 4, though, that was far in the future and doesn't match up. Whoopsie. Spring-Heeled Jack The Lore: Spring-heeled Jack is one of several strange springing figures in relatively recent folklore, beings that seem to have a trickster-like nature and the ability to spew fire and leap great distances. In Supernatural: the RPG, it is stated that Spring-Heeled Jack is an item rather than a monster, being a demon-crafted suit that grants its abilities to the wearer at the cost of making them lustful and crazy. The Game: Wearing the Spring-Heeled Jack suit grants the wearer some damage reduction, amazing leaping powers, silver claws to use in combat, nocturnal vision, and the ability to spew out a six foot trail of blue fire. While the suit itself is indestructible, the person inside isn't, so you can certainly kill the current Jack to get rid of the problem for a while. The Show: Spring-heeled Jack never appeared in Supernatural. Werewolf The Lore: You know what a werewolf is. The Game: When the full moon brings out the werewolf changes, the human character suffers a -1 die size penalty to Intelligence but gets a buff of +1 to the size of all physical attribute dice and +3 to the size of the die for Alertness. They also have claws and teeth to do a fair amount of damage and spread their lycanthropy and the ever popular "Wound damage becomes Stun damage, so you can't kill it without a specific weapon" trait. As you could probably guess, the way to wound the were is with the tried and true silver weapon. The Show: Werewolves have been seen twice in the show and mentioned three other times. The Old Gods The Lore: Superntural: the RPG classifies gods in three varieties - lesser, greater, and elder. Lesser gods are minor deities from various mythologies, greater gods are pantheonic deities, and elder gods are Cthulhu and other incomprehensible star things from the beginning of time. The Game: Oddly enough, in spite of mentioning these three types of deities, none of them are s tatted out. Instead, the only stat block in this section is for Trickster spirits. While having stats - pretty high ones at that, with superhuman-size multiple Intelligence dice - Tricksters are more or less nigh omnipotent forces of nature that or meant to be plot points rather than actual foes. The Show: Lesser and greater gods have appeared in various episodes of Supernatural, all but one of them having been killed. Elder gods have never shown up unless you count the Leviathans from season 6, which I don't. As for Tricksters...yeah, only one of those appeared in the show, and he just turned out to be an archangel playing dressup as an old god, so I'm not sure I'd count it either. The Cryptid Campaign It's basically a normal campaign type re-described. Woo, glad they took time to write these paragraphs. --------------------------------------------------- Next time: we have the second to last chapter, dealing with magic and cursed items. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 00:09 on May 3, 2013 |
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May 3, 2013 00:06
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Chapter 4: Curses and Magic Here we are at the last chapter of this book - I thought it was the second-to-last due to the appendices and misremembering, but it is what it is. It's on curses, magical items, and magic itself, as well as a lot of GM plot talk. Cursed Objects The segment on cursed objects can be summed up as "this is plot-related, not dice rolling". The entire purposes of the cursed object is to have it drive the plot of that particular adventure, have the heroes deal with the problems it causes, and then either destroy it or seal it away in a magic-dampening curse box. Oh, and if wishes are involved, you have free reign to be a dick: The Guide to the Hunted posted:The granter of the wish doesn’t care about the spirit of the desire so much as it does the letter of it. It has no warm and fuzzy feelings for you—you are its entertainment. If you wish to fly, you could get turned into a mosquito. If you wish someone back from the dead, you might get a zombie. Wish up a tasty-delicious sandwich and you’ll find yourself supplicating to the porcelain god for the rest of the night. No matter how much you might attempt to lawyer-up a wish, it will always come back at you. In fact, the more you try and play the game, the worse it usually comes back at you. The Colt Missing since season 5 of the show, the Colt was the Winchester brothers' ace in the hole early on in the series. It can kill all but five beings (just what those are is unknown beyond that Lucifer is one of them) in the universe. In game terms, it's a d6 damage pistol that bypasses "Wound to Stun" immunities and has its own 13 special Plot Points used specifically for acts involved in firing it. Death Visions Sometimes people get omens or precognitions of death. It's mentioned pretty much purely as a potential plot hook. Demonic Viruses Referred to in-universe as "Croatoan" in the several episodes it has appeared in, the demonic virus more or less makes rage zombies. In game terms, the virus simply adds a spare d4 to physical attribute-related rolls, with the mental effects and hive mentality of the rage Dream Root Seen twice in the show's history, the African dream root is a plant (a real plant, but sadly one that doesn't have magical powers in real life, just drug powers) that can be made into a potion that allows someone to enter another person's dreams. While meant to be a special plot point, it also has a few specific game rules attached to it. When in the dreamscape, the players get a unique pool of Plot Points they can't use outside of the dreamscape, as well as a unique use of the Discipline skill called Dreamscaping that focuses on manipulating the dream world. Particularly seasoned dream travelers, such as the villain of season 3, episode 10: Dream a Little Dream of Me, get a unique trait called Dreamwalker that further boosts their ability to manipulate dreamscapes. It's established canon that the fantasy world that djinn poison creatures is the same thing as the dreamscape, so GMs could feel free to have fun connecting the dream root and the djinn in the same plot if they so desired. Ghost Sickness This was detailed back in chapter 1 with the ghost that causes it, so I have no idea why there are five paragraphs of reiteration about it here. Nature Curses Sometimes, nature happens to get really pissed and unleashes its wrath. That or someone lets out a nature-related curse, but who's judging? Either way, nature curses are meant to be the focus of a single localized adventure in the greater story, typically involving swarms. Stats are provided for a swarm of bees, murder of crows, and swarms of animated plants, though the game states that other animals from the Supernatural RPG core rulebook or foul weather could be just as involved in one of these hubbubs. Cults, Covens, and Corporations A group of stats of witches, warlocks, evil lawyers, cultists, and others that have sold their souls to the dark powers of Hell to gain power. Non-demonic magicians need not apply. Grimoires, Tomes, and PDFs Here's where some actual rituals are presented. If you were expecting rules for full-on magic like some of the particularly powerful witches in Supernatural manage to conjure, sorry, you're still as out of luck as you were with the core rulebook. Instead, we get rules for a handful of specific rituals taken from the show as follows.
Alchemy and Mad Science This is transmuting metals, creating homunculi, forging golems, and the like. There are no actual examples, though, just the stats of the immortal alchemist Thomas "Doc" Benton. He is a piece of New Hampshire folklore and a classic college scare-dare subject. He appeared in Supernatural for season 3, episode 15: Time is on my Side, where he ended up being buried alive by Sam and Dean since he couldn't be killed by mortal means. Doc Benton has pretty high stats and is definitely a dangerous figure, but he also happens to need fresh organs to function at 100% so he wouldn't be at full steam if someone happened to dig him up. The Relic Hunters Campaign Long story short: Indiana Jones, but with more active magic forces. The summary on running such a campaign also includes the statistics for Bela Talbot, an occult item hunter from season 3 of the show. ------------------------------------------------- Next time: The appendices and final thoughts on Supernatural: the RPG.
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May 8, 2013 20:49
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Okay, it's time for that "and the rest" post. The Appendices Appendix I: Creating Monsters Just in case you wanted the creation rules from the core rulebook restated again. You also get multiple reiterations of "you can file off serial numbers to make one stat block work as something else  ".Appendix II: Sympathy With the Devil This right here is, hands down, one of the best chapters in Guide to the Hunted. And it's not even a full-fledged chapter, just ana appendix! For all of its moral black and white moments concerning humanity vs. "monsters", Supernatural the show does sometimes dip into the idea that, shock-horror, supernatural beings are not always bad. While it doesn't really provide any new rules and is often pretty obvious, the allowance of actually playing a werewolf, vampire, or other changed human allows for another layer of Hunting. Besides, the Winchesters have been more than willing to allow paranormal entities into their team if it benefits them, so why shouldn't you? Final Thoughts As I said before, I don't own nor would I want to review the book of sample adventures for Supernatural: The Roleplaying Game, which means we're at the end of this road. This brings us back to the question I posed when I started going over these books: is Supernatural: the Roleplaying Game one that died before its time? Not really, no. Supernatural: the Roleplaying Game covered only the first four seasons of the show, with some elements of the fifth being hinted at, and that's probably a good place for them to have stopped. Season 5 was a huge turning point for Supernatural that seemed like it could have been the series finale, and seasons 6 and 7 are hard to view as not being lurching zombies in a way, even if season 8 has started to get back into form. That and Supernatural isn't a series that really lends itself to a ton of sourcebooks, especially in a somewhat abstract light rules system like Cortex. This doesn't explain why Margaret Weis Productions let the Supernatural and Marvel Comics licenses wane but is remaking their Firefly/Serenity RPG of all things, admittedly, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it. ------------------------------------ Next time: It's time for a new review series. Be prepared for war. A world war, in fact. A world war involving Dungeons and Dragons rules and the occult.
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May 9, 2013 03:34
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Also, AEG had a ton of books that were basically {ONE WORD CONCEPT} and if I'm remembering rightly they all sucked terribly. Speaking of Dungeons and Dragons 3E material, though, let's talk about...  Introduction From the same people who brought you Deadlands d20 came Weird War II. Coming out of that turn of the millennium d20 system boom, Weird War II was another product like Broncosaurus Rex that made the effort to push the Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 rules into a more modern setting before Wizards of the Coast even started thinking about d20 Modern. Thankfully, we won't have any Confederate heroes and Union villains this time, just good old-fashioned Nazi punching. Of course, if you couldn't guess from the name Weird War II, this is the big war with a twist. Those Nazi occultists you heard about? They have real magic, forged out of either blood rites or Germanic runes. They also have undead soldiers, mad science-produced abominations, automatons, and apes with human brains. Furthermore, the Japanese have oni marching alongside their soldiers, the Allies have spirits of battle aiding them against the occult powers of the Axis, haunted vehicles are trundling around the battlefields, and things from old mythology are stirring and none too happy about all of the stupid humans waging their country wars without respect for the peace of the old beings. It's a paranormal mess, and you play a military member or resistance fighter caught smack-dab in the middle of it. I'm going to be covering all of the books from the D&D 3.0 era of Weird War II, but don't expect any really set order to stick. I'll be obviously doing the core book, Blood on the Rhine, first, but after that it's a crapshoot. I'd say that second will probably be the bestiary Horrors of Weird War II and then the third will be the Russian sourcebook Hell Freezes Over, but after that I'll probably just move on a whim. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 00:48 on May 18, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 06:16
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Part 1: In the dark past of 1944, there is only WAR Chapter 1 The very first chapter of the core rulebook Weird War II: Blood on the Rhine isn't really weird, but it certainly is very war. Two World Wars, in fact, as it goes over the real world history of World War I, its effects on Germany, and World War II. Obviously you either know this from history class or could just Wikipedia it up, and there's only one "What If?" sidebar in this chapter discussing the possibility of an alternate universe where the Battle of Britain was lost and Germany managed to steamroll the seas during Operation Sea Lion, so we'll head to the next chapter. Chapter 2 Chapter 2: Characters begins with a short overview of just who you are playing. Big surprise, you are playing humans in World War II. World War II: Blood on the Rhine posted:Let’s start with which side you’re on - the Allies. The Axis are the bad guys. The view of this game and its authors is that Hitler and the Nazis were evil. Individual soldiers (outside of the SS) and civilians are somewhat compelled to follow them. See the sidebar on page 45 for a longer discussion on this game’s take on Germans and Nazis. "We're not saying you can't run a Nazi campaign, man, just it's not blood on our hands." So, since everybody's human, that pretty much leaves character class as the big defining difference between party members. There are a grand total of five base classes presented in the core rules for Weird War II, as follows:
After that, there's a section on ranks in the US, UK, and German militaries, some rules on just what POWs can and cannot do based on the rules set down at the Hague in 1907, and statements on how you are pretty much forced into a special division if you want to play a female, black, or Japanese-American character. Thankfully, there's a special organization called the Office for Supernatural Inquiry that is progressive and lets everyone in to fight and learn, which means that the segregated military isn't relevant unless your The final part of chapter 2 deals with the command structure of the Allies and the Nazis, as well as the French Resistance. It is more historical information you probably know, but is also noteworthy for having an actual photo of desiccated corpses being dumped out of a death camp. I can't say I was expecting that in my D&D game about fighting Nazi zombies. -------------------------------------------------- Next time: skills, feats, and equipment. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 00:48 on May 18, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 20:42
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I'm going to add to the vote for Cradle and Crescent. Ars Magica seems to have writers that can manage to pull off a sourcebook on Islam without having an off-day White Wolf-style faceplant. EDIT: Oh hey, it won without my help. Yay for writing a post while events happen. Speaking of White Wolf, the following post has absolutely nothing to do with them, so this segue is pointless. Weird War II Core Rules review, Part 2: Language Chapter 3: Skills and Feats Being a setting meant to take Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 into the world of the 1930s and 1940s, it shouldn't really be surprising that there are new skill and feat rules that need to be added on. This starts with a list of some changes to classic D&D skills. First off are restrictions - that is, some skills you can't even take cross-class ranks in, they are locked to a specific class and you just have to deal with it. Alchemy, Scry, and Use Magic Item can only be used by characters with the OSI Adept prestige class (prestige classes won't be seen until chapter 6), Knowledge (Arcana) can only be taken by individuals affiliated with the Office for Supernatural Inquiry, and Decipher Script requires either the OSI Adept prestige class or OSI Operative prestige class (because god forbid the Resistance Fighter base class or the like get the ability to decode things). Second are new Knowledge skill subtypes, namely Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, Mathematics, Meteorology, Military, and Physics. And thirdly, there is the altered Speak Language. Oh my... If you know your d20 system, Speak Language is usually a simple "take a rank (or two if it's a cross-class skill) to know how to speak a language". Weird War II instead has Speak Language have ranks like other skills. One rank gives you just a smattering of words in the language, two ranks lets you make simplistic sentences, three ranks lets you speak most average sentences, four ranks lets you speak with accented inflections, five ranks lets you speak the basic language flawlessly, and six ranks lets you mime specific regional accents and dialects of the language. You automatically get five ranks in your native language. Even better, if you have less than five ranks in a language, you have to make Speak Language checks to get your speech right. And speaking very slowly lets the guy you're speaking to make a Listen check that gives you a bonus to your Speak Language check if you succeed. As for completely new skills, they are as follows.
You may be wondering where the Pilot skill is to offset the Driving skill - it's World War Ii, after all. Well, you will have to wait for the Weird War II sourcebook Dead From Above for that. Most of the feats are for proficiency in some sort of transport or weapon - Automatic Weapons Proficiency (submachine guns and automatic rifles), Firearms Proficiency, Flamethrower Proficiency, Gunnery Proficiency (artillery and vehicle-mounted weapons) Gyrostabilizer (you can't read the readouts of a tank's gyrostabilizers without it), Mortar Proficiency, Parachute Proficiency, Rocket Launcher Proficiency, Tracked Vehicle Proficiency, and Wheeled Vehicle Proficiency. What few other feats there are range from wasteful such as Eagle-Eyed (you get a +2 bonus to Listen and Spot checks...but only at 100 yards away or further. Why not just take Alertness for the same bonus at no range limit?) to actually somewhat useful ones such as Command (if you succeed on a Leadership roll, you can grant the soldiers under your command your Initiative modifier -1 rather than their own Initiative modifier, letting them all move together at a rate potentially higher than their foes). Equipment We'll be going over equipment rather quickly, as most of the actual rules for new types of weapon combat and vehicles don't appear until next chapter.
------------------------------------------------------- Next time: the combat rules and prestige classes chapters, wherein shotgun enthusiasts will probably cry. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 00:49 on May 18, 2013 |
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May 13, 2013 05:03
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I do believe I heard a call for supernatural creatures in World War II gear. Part 3: Shooting, Saints, and Spies Chapter 5: Combat Are you ready for a primitive attempt at firearms rules for Dungeons and Dragons 3.0? I hope you are, because that's what you're getting. So, let's start with a quick rundown of new combat rules related to guns.
Then there are shotguns. Oh, shotguns. They are weapons that look at the normal ranged weapon combat rules and go "I'm making my OWN path!" Rather than suffering penalties to attack rolls based on increasing range increments, shotguns instead do something entirely unique. Namely, for each range increment past the first, they gain a cumulative +2 bonus to attack rolls up to a maximum of +6. At the same time, however, they lose entire damage dice as they travel. You need to shoot a target point blank to get the full 4d6 damage of Weird War II shotguns - a single range increment lowers it to 3d6, two range increments to 2d6, and three to 1d6. Because apparently just having something like exchanging attack roll bonus for damage roll penalty would have been too easy and not enough to screw over everybody's favorite chew toy. That's right, the Resistance Fighter class is stated to be pretty much the only character type that uses shotguns.  The rest of the material is a bit less noteworthy. Flamethrowers are sort of like breath weapons, grenades are sort of like acid splash damage, smoke grants concealment, the concept of Vehicles are also mentioned, and they are pretty much mindless mounts with a special [s[Hardness[/s] Armor (not to be confused with Armor Class). You have to make a Driving check any time the vehicle's Armor rating is bypassed by damage, if there's hazardous terrain, or you want to do a fancy stunt driving maneuver.  A lot of the imagery in Weird War II is actual photography from World War II. Here's what it looks like when it isn't. Chapter 6: Prestige Classes There are five 10-level prestige classes unique to Weird War II's core rulebook, just like there are five base classes. It's a coincidence, but an amusing one to note.
----------------------------------------------- Next time: Magic and haunted vehicles.
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May 14, 2013 23:35
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Part 4: The Return of Ghost Tank Chapter 7: Magic If you somehow couldn't guess from last chapter's prestige classes and the fact that this is an occult war setting, Weird War II does indeed have magic. As with its source material, Weird War II's magic is divided into the arcane and the divine (retooled as miracles and rune magic) - unlike standard D&D 3.0, however, both have a few catches. We'll cover miracles first, as they are covered first in the chapter. A miracle is the form of divine magic utilized by Chaplains. While the spells are pretty much the same as those cast by a D&D Cleric, they only go up to 5th level total and are cast in a different manner. The Chaplain doesn't need a holy symbol, but instead must make a loud proclamation to his deity over the course of the time it takes to cast the spell, then make a check with the unique Prayer skill at a DC of 15 + twice the spell's level. If the check succeeds, the spell is cast, while a failed check means God's got you on the answering machine line and you're out of luck. Furthermore, successfully invoking a miracle or botching a Prayer roll with a natural 1 fatigues the Chaplain's body, dealing nonlethal damage equal to 3 times the spell's level (1 for a 0-level spell, as they aren't left out). As for arcane magic, it takes the form of rune magic, based on old Germanic and Norse runes. Both Allied Adepts and Nazi Blood Mages harness the power of runes to fuel their ancient and dangerous form of magic. To cast a spell with run magic, you must have studied and understand the specific runes tied to a specific spell. The casting and fatigue is pretty much on the same rate as miracles, but replacing the Prayer skill with the Spellcraft skill and invoking the meaning and inscription of the rune rather than performing prayer. You can choose to skimp out on either the talking or the rune carving part of the spell, but doing so increases the Spellcraft DC by 10. Runes can be carved straightforward or made into a dark "merkstave" rune to perform darker or opposed facets of the rune. The specific runes are as follows.
So, just what do all these runes actually mean in practice? The 0- through 5th level spells the Adept or Blood Mage attains are the same as a Wizard or Sorcerer, but are tied to specific runes, the number of runes increasing with complexity. For instance, while casting the spell light only requires calling upon the power of Kenaz, casting wall of iron requires the combined runic symbology of Algiz, Othala, and Teiwaz. Chapter 8: Haunted Vehicles For some reason, this gets its own chapter rather than being part of the bestiary chapter later on. A haunted vehicle is basically sort of like a class that can be taken by a vehicle that has gained intelligence from a ghost that haunts it. Each level allows the hanted vehicle to pick up a special power that can vary from damage or spell resistance up to becoming invisible or raising the dead. By paying experience points, a player group can have a haunted vehicle (or even a small squad of haunted vehicles if you are willing to pay the hefty price) as a companion NPC for their group. --------------------------------------------------------- Next time: we get to the thickest chapter in the book, the gamemaster's section! Oh, and there's a small bestiary-before-the-bestiary-book too.
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May 18, 2013 02:14
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wdarkk posted:Can you make a haunted B-17 that's virtually impossible to permanently destroy? I doubt any sane GM would allow it, but it would be glorious.
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May 18, 2013 04:38
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wdarkk posted:Out of curiosity how much HP would it have at that point and how much damage would a maximum-velocity crash deal? Bieeardo posted:How about a B-17 that turns dead occupants into flesh-eating zombies?
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May 18, 2013 05:47
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Part 5: The Rest of the Core Rulebook  Chapter 9: Officer's Country AKA the Game Mastering chapter. The majority of this chapter deals with either the Allies or the Germans - just as aircraft aren't really covered until the sourcebook Death From Above, other Axis forces are only really expanded upon in Africa Korpse (the Italians) and Land of the Rising Dead (the Japanese). Still, it does finally give us a look into the weird part of Weird War II, so I can't really fault it too hard. Up first are the origins of the whole magic conflict. While an evil-hunting secret society known as the Sons of Solomon have been trundling around for a while now, the first big discovery of magic for modern warfare was in 1936, when the Nazis dug up an ancient Germanic guide to rune magic. They used this knowledge to create the blood mages (who use a class called Adept, which is just the D&D Sorcerer plus rune requirement). Blood mages aren't exactly prolific, being only found in the highest eschelons of the Gestapo and SS as well as Hitler's personal entourage. Members of the Sons of Solomon aiding the Allied cause found out about Hitler's growing occult armies, said "gently caress that" to the idea, and started the Office of Supernatural Investigations in 1940. The OSI's job is to eliminate both supernatural threats created by the Axis and those that have been woken up from their long slumber by all the death and chaos around them. After introducing the big Nazi and Allied occult players, there's discussion of general gameplay. Most of the new GMing rules and tips are what you'd expect from an occult horror war game: Will saves to avoid becoming shaken with fear, medals for rank, shpiel about how a haunted vehicle should be a character for the players to interact with and not just a fancy magic item they have, and the question of what happens when the Soviet Union has the switch flipped to "enemy" and the magic-fueled Cold War starts. There are also enemy NPC stats for a panzer crewman (Grunt 1) and veteran crewman (Grunt 4), Waffen SS officer (Officer 1) and veteran officer (Officer 4), Waffen SS soldier (Grunt 1) and veteran soldier (Grunt 4), Waffen SS blood mage (Officer 6/Adept 6), Wehracht officer (Officer 1) and veteran officer (Officer 4), Wehrmacht soldier (Grunt 1) and veteran soldier (Grunt 4), and Wehrmacht sniper (Scout 5/Sniper 1). But who cares about humans? Let's get to monsters! That's right, chapter 9 ends with a small, but nonetheless tasty, sample of the kind of creeps you can find in the Weird War II universe. In addition to a blurb noting that monsters from old European folklore such as ogres and vampires can be found in the dark corners of the warfront, there are a few new monsters - ten, in fact.
Chapter 10: Dogs of War It's a short introductory adventure saving a downed pilot in France from a blood mage and his kluddes. ---------------------------------------------------- Next time: We start the bestiary sourcebook Horrors of Weird War II.
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May 19, 2013 09:14
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 Doesn't have quite the same kick as the core book's header, but we get what we get. It's bestiary time! It is definitely no secret that I am easily swayed by good monster collections. Hell, I often buy bestiary supplementals for roleplaying games I don't even play. I think I've actually told this story before, though, so I'll just head into the book. There are 100 total monsters in Weird War II's full-on bestiary, Horrors of Weird War II, so I've decided I'll be looking at then 20 at a time. I've also decided I won't be providing pictures of all of them, just ones that are either interesting, stupid, or if I feel like it. Part 1: Acheri to Chill Acheri (CR 1 Small Undead) Found in rural mountain regions in India, the acheri is the ghost of a little girl who is capable of spreading mischief and misfortune alike. They can either sing a song of ill omen that can curse someone who failed their Will save into having a week of -2 penalties to pretty much any roll or cast a dark shadow that spreads either cholera, dysentery, malaria, or typhoid fever. While their innocent appearance forces potential attackers to make a DC 15 Will save or just not have the heart to do it, they can be driven off and warded against by red cloth.  Adaro (CR 2 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) Evil fishmen found in the waters of Oceania. They happen to like the taste of human flesh, but they're also greedy bastards, so they'll often set up protection rackets in island villages to get what they want. If someone doesn't respect them or fights back, like soldiers are probably likely to do if they encounter them, the adaro can fight back with an arsenal pretty drat impressive for a creature of such a low Challenge Rating. Not only do they have sharp claws and a long serrated horn, they are also capable of going into a barbarian rage, teleporting, summon rain and stormy waves, summon sharps, or turning water droplets into poisonous flying fish missiles.  The adaro may be overpowered for its CR, but it's overpowered in style.Alraune (CR 7 Medium-size Undead) Alraune is a specific individual, though the fact that her occult origin (impregnating a woman with semen taken from the dirt below a hanged man) is written down means there could theoretically be more than one. She is a temptress figure, said to be a flawlessly beautiful ivory-skinned raven-haired woman, and is definitely a deadly femme fatale. In addition to having spells as per a 6th level Wizard and a negative energy touch, Alraune has defenses in the form of fast healing, damage reduction, and an obscene +8 turn resistance. As if that wasn't enough, she also has a two-part gaze attack. With this gaze attack, she can either influence men and then bestow a curse on them or just screw subtlety and force a save-or-die effect. American Super Soldier (CR 8 Medium-size Outsider) Sort of a mix between a guardian angel and Captain America, the American super soldier is a GI who was brutally experimented on by SS occultists but managed to survive and escape, transcending his human nature to become a hero figure who appears to groups of Allied soldiers who are in dire straits and need a helping hand. The super soldier's ability to teleport anywhere in the world instantly, tactical skills, and firearms proficiency mark his role as an NPC entity who comes to help the players out of a jam if the GM feels like the story calls for him.  Animated Dead (CR 1 Medium-size Undead) The animated dead is a freakish mix of clockwork parts melded into flesh and ionized fluids replacing blood, created by Nazi machinists who wanted to prove that they could do the whole zombie thing just as well as the occultists could. While not some amazing monster to write home about as far as power levels go, animated dead do have one trick zombies don't in the form of being able to expel electrical bursts around themselves to shock foes with 2d12 electricity damage, which is surprisingly potent for a monster meant to be sent up against first level characters. Asphyxiation Zombie (CR 3 Medium-size Undead) Most of the time, the Weird War II books are surprisingly level-headed and caring about the horrors of war - this entry is not one of those times. No, the asphyxiation zombies are the final result of the final solution, being undead raised by a special occult-juiced form of Zyklon-B used in specific gas chambers in some concentration camps. They can cause fear with their distorted and bloated appearances, their bites induce confusion, slashing or piercing weapons can sometimes cause them to rupture and leak nauseating gasses, and why the hell does this entry exist Aswang (CR 6 Medium-size Shapeshifter) Ah yes, Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, back before 3.5 decided that Shapechanger was better as a subtype rather than its own full type. Aswang are vampiric creatures from the Phillipines that have a human shape, but can also take the form of a dog, horse, or pig. They sneak out at night to paralyze victims and the drain their blood, and can also spread a curse that causes anyone that fails a rather high Fortitude save to become an aswang come the next sunset. Thankfully, Filipino shamans can cure an aswang, transforming them back into a human with the proper rituals just as long as someone captures the creature alive to deliver it to the shaman.  Atomic Marine (CR 4 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) Let it not be said that the Axis were the only people who did stupid poo poo in the Weird War II universe. These pleasant fellows are the creation of one Jack Garnets, an Illinois scientist who decided that asking the military to stuff soldiers into a room full of experimental radioactive super-compound was a good idea. It went about as well as you'd expect. The resulting "atomic marines" are merciless, emotionless killers who don't differentiate between Ally and Axis - if it's in a uniform, it's a target. They roam the jungles of southeast Asia, having escaped the GI handlers that were foolish enough to think they could control them, and kill any soldiers from either side that they find. In addition to having radiation-resistant firearms, atomic marines exude a field of damaging radiation or use their twisted hands as brutal claws. Another benefit of their nature is that they are both gooey and warm enough that they get damage reduction, as pretty much anything that hits them is going to come away melted. Axis Apes Technically three of the one hundred creatures in the book, but I've collected them into this one header because they're all tied together. For some reason, the Nazis and Japanese alike decided "hey, you know what would be great? Gorilla soldiers" and started work on several wacky experiments. The results are the three axis apes. The first type is the ape in uniform (CR 2 Large Animal), which is basically a hulking gorilla that has had its intelligence augmented enough to be used as menial labor of a cheap guard. The second type, the human with an ape brain (CR Medium-size Humanoid), is a POW that has been "devolved" into a clawed, fanged, ill-tempered dumb brute who is used for the same things the ape in uniform is. The last of the three is the ape with a human brain (CR 3 Large Humanoid), a cripplingly wounded Axis soldier who had their brain put into a gorilla's body so that they could continue to fight in an even stronger form in spite of their original body's disabling injuries.  Axis Stitch (CR 9 Large Construct) What's worse than a flesh golem? A flesh golem with metal plates sewn onto it and spikes for hands. While they aren't healed by electricity like normal flesh golems - they're animated by Nazi blood magic instead of zappity zaps - they do have magic immunity, super-strength, and the other goods of a flesh golem combined with rending spike attacks and enhanced defensive capabilities thanks to their fancy steel suits. Battle Spirit (CR 13 Huge Undead) An uber-poltergeist created from numerous soldiers' ghosts, battle spirits wait underground until battles break around around them, at which point they burst out and lay waste like invisible tornadoes of doom. They have +4 turn resistance, energy drain, and can telekinetically throw around pretty much anything they feel like. Black Annis (CR 6 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) Black Annis is an evil hag that lives in England's Dane Hills. She's an evil creature that desires nothing more than power and the flesh of humans and livestock to feed her relentless hunger, and the fact that she keeps popping up after being slain or banished seems to indicate that there's either more than one "black annis" hag or that she's immortal. The text seems to suggest that the latter is definitely true (though the former may be as well), and that Black Annis was a pagan goddess before being magically bound and downsized to her haggish state, which is why Nazi blood mages have been trying to sneak into England and recharge her back to her former wicked glory. As she is, however, Black Annis isn't exactly a pushover. Her claws are vicious tools of rending, her wailing cry can strike fear into those who hear it, her spit is a corrosive acid, and she can either turn into a black cat or summon a cat swarm. What good a cat swarm would actually do is up to debate, but she can do it nonetheless. Black Peter (CR 8 Medium-size Outsider) A demon who was once in the business of guiding souls into the arms of Hell before he ended up being beaten and enslaved by good old St. Nick. It turns out that centuries of servitude to a jolly bearded saint does a toll on a demon's sanity, though, and now Black Peter has found his way out of bondage and is ready to cause some serious suffering. His powers are spell-like abilities related to deceit and illusions, has a pretty big bonus to most social skills, and has a guilt trip gaze attack that causes a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1d3 rounds if it succeeds. If his social skills weren't enough, however, he can also just straight up choke you with the magical chains that surround him or send his two kludde hounds to attack you while he disappears into a nearby shadow. Black Wood (CR ? Huge Fey) Whoops, looks like someone forgot the Challenge Rating line on this monster. The black wood is an evil faerie creature that has been forced into the form of a twisted ambulatory tree. While they can exude a bitterly cold fog, their primary method of combat is pretty straightforward: use their sticky sap to trap a foe close, impale them with their sharp branch-arms, and then suck out their blood.  Blemmye (CR 1 Medium-size Humanoid) These strange humanoids are found in Sudan and southern Egypt and can be easily identified by the fact that they have a face in their chest. They are cautious but skilled warriors, typically living a nomadic existence riding from cave to cave on camel-back and raiding human settlements under the cover of darkness to attain supplies. Germans have been pretending to be British colonials and forcibly manufacturing a conflict between the blemmyes and the British and Arab denizens of the region. In addition to the big boon that is being able to take character classes, blemmyes are crack shots that double the effective range of the effects of the ever popular Point Blank Shot feat. Carrion Vulture (CR 1 Small Undead) Rotting undead vultures that can induce fear and have a paralytic bite. They do what vultures do best and don't really have any motive beyond the desire to feed, though they are incidental players in the war because of the fact that blood mages have figured out that carrion vultures can predict where a battle will take place and watch them accordingly. They also hate reptiles for some reason and will attack them on sight. Catafalte (CR 5 Large Monstrous Humanoid) Catafaltes are that old wive's tale about cats stealing your breath taken to the extreme conclusion. They are lion-sized anthropomorphic cats that believe stealing human essence can bring forth their evolutionary potential and make them more human. In truth, the breath-stealing is a Constitution damage attack that grants the catafalte a permanent +1 to their Contsitution score every time it successfully kills someone by taking their breath away. Chill (CR 1 Medium-size Aberration) These strange icy wisp-blobs float around at night and suck heat from people. Interestingly enough, unlike many monsters that have A Constitution damaging attack, the chill's heat drain isn't meant to kill as it floats away satisfied with its meal as soon as the target falls asleep from having 0 Constitution. Fear not, however, as the book specifically suggests that the War Master use the chill against people who need to stay awake such as sentries and guards.
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May 20, 2013 12:55
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Part 2: Chinese Dragon to Hades Corps Chinese Dragon (CR 9 Large Dragon) A Lawful Good dragon that claws and bites at evil people and dazes non-evil people if forced to fight them. Eh.  Composite (CR 5 Medium-size Construct) Tied directly to a later monster called the Doctor X (we'll get to those in a little), composites are heaps of flesh and limbs sewn together haphazardly and animated. They have a primitive intellect compared to mindless things like golems, but only to the extent that they can comprehend simplistic plans and desire to help their Doctor Xs in things such as guard duty, kidnappings, or just plain-out warfare. As far as anything beyond basic combat goes, though, it's sort of a crapshoot of the dice. The composite's extra limbs may or may not work depending on a dice roll, and sometimes a dice roll will have their redundant organs bring them back to life after being apparently destroyed. Curse of Frankenstein (CR 8 Large Monstrous Humanoid) The curses of Frankenstein, or Frankenstein troopers, are the results of Nazis taking Victor von Frankenstein's original scientific papers and expanding on his work. After repeated tests, they have created brute warriors who have no fear but can induce fear in others with their aura, are still vulnerable to fire but no longer fear it, have fast healing and damage reduction, and are equipped with Wolverine-style hand blades and a machine gun. Dead Man's Helmet (CR - Tiny Undead) The helmet of a dead man. Specifically, it's the helmet of a soldier who died a very traumatic death and their spirit is bound to it. If anyone puts the helmet on - which is more likely than you'd think, as it has a compulsion aura - they'll get spammed with random incoherent flashes of the dead soldier's life and gain PTSD for 2d6 hours, at which point the spirit departs. It's basically meant to be a hazard more than an active monster. Deserter (CR 1 Medium-size Undead) The deserter is the undead spirit of a soldier who deserted their unit and died on the run. It can't really do much besides shoot its rifle, which it will at pretty much any uniformed officer it sees as it panics.  Der Einzelgaenger (CR 5 Gargantuan Undead) Ghost U-Boat! As you might guess from the low Challenge Rating, however, it's not a big brutish war machine like a haunted vehicle. It's incorporeal and has no weaponry. Don't let that fool you, though - Der Einzelgaenger has a dark trick up its sleeve. With decent ranks in Bluff and Intimidate, it can spook and mislead an Allied ship crew into falling right into an ambush by very corporeal and very armed active U-Boat patrols. Djinn (CR 7 Large Elemental) Yadda yadda smokeless fire made etc. etc. blah blah. Weird War II interprets the description of genies as meaning they are invisible fire elementals, whose actions can vary widely depending on the personal outlook of the specific djinn in question. They have the power to spread disease or possess an animal and are healed by fire, but suffer photophobia that forces them to hide or possess an animal during the day. If push comes to shove, they can also just simply whack people with their giant invisible scimitars, which certainly works just as well as sneaking around. Doctor X (CR 5 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) As if regular Nazi mad scientists weren't enough, the creatures known as Doctor Xs were formerly reputable doctors before being brainwashed and forced to endure and dish out physical and psychological torture until either they committed suicide, died, or went insane. Those that su rvive all call themselves Doctor X, all have scars and deformities from self-experimentation, and prey upon either wounded soldiers or the downtrodden such as prostitutes or mental institute patients. They torture and experiment on people and use the bodies of those they kill to create the composites we saw a few entries up. As far as their own combat capabilities go, they have a scalpel (stats the same as your standard 1d4 damage D&D knife) that deals triple damage as long as the Doctor X is engaging one-on-one or has the superior overall numbers compared to his foes. Electrical Man (CR 2 Medium-size Construct) Straight-up Nazi robots. They look vaguely like diving suits made out of metal and rubber joints, have flashlights and human brains inside of their domes, and are proficiency with submachine guns. They are considered to be experimental and rarely seen outside of their creation facility in Haigerloch, Germany.  Explosive Zombie (CR 1 Medium-size Undead) It's a zombie filled with explosives. Doesn't get much more straightforward than that. Fever Spider (CR 1 Small Animal) Particularly intelligent for an invertebrate and capable of keeping pace with a wolf, these blood red Indonesian jungle-dwellers are one of those things that seem tailor-made to mess with arachnophobes at your game table. To make things even worse, they are stated to be extremely territorial and will follow someone they bite until they die. Their name comes from the fact that their bite spreads a bacterial infection that induces a high fever and Constitution damage. Finn Haunt (CR 2 Medium-size Undead) These are our first example of a creature that actively opposes and targets the Allies alone but isn't of Nazi make. The Finn haunts are the ghosts of Frisian warriors who remember when the Anglo-Saxons killed their people, and are pissed as hell that Anglo-Saxon descendants are descending upon Germany once again. Their spell-like abilities are all tied into what they do to British people when they find them: ghost sound[./i] to lure people into buildings, hold portal to close the doors of the building, and [i]produce flame to set the building on fire. When they are in fire, Finn haunts can fully manifest and use a Wisdom-draining attack to further complicate matters for the poor Brit. Flagellant (CR 4 Medium-size Undead) There...there are not enough  s in the world to describe this entry. Intelligent undead made by blood mages from Nazi soldiers who suffered major stomach wounds, flagellants act like the most twisted moral support ever, using their entrails as bullwhips to attack the enemy and to whip themselves or Nazi soldiers under their command into a barbarian rage. This exists in this book. I swear to you I am not using hyperbole on this monster. Fog of War (CR 4 Large Aberration) The fog of war is a rather twisted monster, a gaseous maliciousness that rises in times of war for the sole purpose of instigating friendly fire. To achieve this end, it has a litany of spell-like abilities related to illusions and the ability to attempt to force itself into someone who fully enters its foggy body and thus dominate their actions. As for fighting back? Well, it's fog, so most attacks aren't going to do much and explosives or non-AoE spells in particular only do half their normal damage on top of the prodigious damage reduction being made of mist grants. On the other hand, strong winds and heavy rains can damage if if you can whip them up, and electrical and water-based attacks deal double damage to them. Gangrene (CR 1 Medium-size Undead) A plague zombie by any other name. Gehrinesser Gruppe (CR 7 Medium-size Shapeshifter) One of the more insidous experimental entities of the Nazis, the gehrinsser gruppe are faceless folk who can take on someone's form, skills, and feats by consuming their brain. Depending on how they conserve their brain matter, this ruse can go on for months, which makes them a very dangerous unseen foe. The only flaw of their mimicry is that they have to consciously make an effort to avoid using the opposite hand of the victim they are impersonating. This means that a proper Bluff check can blow the game away as the gehrinesser gruppe literally shows its hand. Ghillie (CR 5 Medium-size Aberration) These freakish parasites have a vaguely humanoid shape made out of brown and green mulch and leaves. It can take over a host by engulfing them and beating them at a Will save, effectively using them as both a defense and as a food source for their blood draining attack. As long as ghillie is attached, the host gets the boon of its abilities and camouflage, but is also liable to take damage that is actually intended for the ghillie. The ghillie also grants the Sniper prestige class's crippling shot ability, as it likes to leave its potential new victims alive. Ghost of the Red Baron (CR 10 Huge Undead) The ghostly figure of Manfred von Richthofen and his soul-bound plane are one of the most dangerous tricks up the Nazi air command's sleeve. He can manifest anywhere in Germany (but not outside of it) and is effectively immortal, simply reappearing later if he is shot down. The only way to truly end Richtofen's second reign of terror is to find the bone talismans that the Nazi blood mages used to summon his spirit, take them all to his grave, and then consecrate it in a funeral ritual. It's more or less a whole adventure of its own, which is probably for the best when dealing with such a historical figure. Grendel (CR 11 Huge Giant) For some unknown reason, this infamous giant of legend has managed to survive his apparent death in the old sagas. He still has a lost arm from his fight with Beowulf, though, and he has an obsession with ripping off people's right arms in vengeance. Then again, he tends to rip things off in general, as he goes from town to town with no real goal other than slaughter and sustenance. He's certainly a beast in combat as well - even if you discount his ability to go into a rage and make his already prodigious strength even higher, his amazingly rough hide forces a save-or-break on any melee weapon every time you hit him. The only saving grace is that he is sluggish and weaker during the day, which means that you could defeat him easier if you somehow manage to find his sleeping spot. Hades Corps (CR +1 or +2 Template) The Hades Corps are the ultimate SS soldiers, ones who literally survived going to Hell and back. Their origin is in an experimental attempt to harness infernal energy for the Nazi war machine that instead sucked the research facility into Hell, where only the toughest SS soldiers managed to fight their way back to our world. A soldier with this template becomes an Outsider with the Fire subtype. Their touch burns, touching them burn, and on top of that they can burn with various fire-related spell-like abilities. And if you manage to kill one, they explode into a fireball for even more fire. Examples are provided of putting the Hades Corps template on a Grunt 4 and an Officer 7. --------------------------------------------------------------- Next time: French cannibals, Japanese ghost samurai, Arabic temptresses, and more.
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May 21, 2013 23:54
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Part 3: HMS Sapphire to Orang-Bati HMS Sapphire (CR 12 Colossal Undead) Nicknamed "The Deadnaught", the HMS Sapphire was a World War I era dreadnaught that was secretly built in South Africa and mysteriously sank in the Atlantic on her maiden voyage. The ship is now a vengeful spirit of the sea whose crew hunt for shipwrecks to scavenge even more souls from in order to fill the entire sea with the sorrow of forgotten tragedy. The undead sailors expand in a dark fog at a 90 foot radius around the Sapphire, clawing at anyone they come in contact with, while the ship itself is effectively immortal unless you can find exactly where it actually wrecked and pull off a proper burial ritual. This means that, as with the ghost of the Red Baron, a big part of this ghostly vehicle's encounter potential is in the adventure around putting it to rest. Homme-Rat (CR 1 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) Rat people that live in the sewers and catacombs of France. They like to eat people and perform ritual sacrifice, but that's pretty much all that's known about them. Husk (CR 3 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) The husk could be described as the desert equivalent of the Canadian wendigo. Like the wendigo legend, the husk is formed when a human in dire conditions turns to cannibalism and insanity - in this case, someone in the desert turning to blood-drinking. The result is a warped monster with a leathery hide, long claws, and sharp teeth. It has no supernatural powers to speak of, but its psychosis and strength make it a dangerous foe if it can use its stealth to get the jump on a small group of low-level characters. Infiltrator (CR 4 Medium-size Shapechanger) The Japanese shapeshifting spy guys. Unlike the Nazi versions, these ones don't have to eat brains to keep up a disguise, instead using spiritual power. They are also weaker overall and have more of a focus on manipulating team members into dissent as opposed to their Nazi counterparts' long-term subterfuge.  Izgoi (CR 1 Medium-size Fey) Our next species that is stated to take character classes at long last!  These are the izgoi, a Russian term referring to exiles or orphans, who are unsurprisingly found in eastern Europe. They live in small villages lead by a ruler known as a hedman and a matriarchal shaman known as the vedomye zheny. They are a hardy fey folk that have damage reduction, regeneration as long as they have their feet in touch with the earth, and spell-like abilities related to stealth and further defensiveness. They also have a +1 bonus to saving throws and attack rolls as long as they are within 12 miles of their home village, but suffer Constitution damage for every week they are away from it. Both the Russians and Germans have tried to sway the izgoi to their sides, but they have pretty much refused both, even sometimes creating small retaliatory militias to fight off Nazi invaders.Kamikaze Spirit (CR 3 Medium-size Undead) The Japanese occultists known as the Kuromaku (who we'll learn more about in the book Land of the Rising Dead) happened to create these guys by accident. The original intent was just to fuel kamikaze pilots with black magic, but it turned out that a side-effect was the creation of a unique type of undead that seeks out even more planes to crash. Its modus operandi is to sneak into a ship, Wisdom drain the pilot into a nightmare-filled sleep, take the reigns of the plane to crash it into an Allied ship, and then head to a new plane to do it all over again. Keel Wyrm (CR 3 Huge Beast) Beast, the other creature type besides Shapeshifter that existed in 3.0 but disappeared in 3.5. Our first example of tis type in Weird War II are the keel wyrms, giant versions of the keel worm. While they aren't particularly dangerous, they have a bad habit of living in groups that slow down ships as they build numerous calcified burrows on the underbelly, which means anyone diving to try to fix the issue has to deal with about a dozen or so snapping jaws from freaky 20 foot-long worms. Khamsin (CR 5 Medium-size Outsider) Either earth-bound genies or cursed Amazons depending on who you ask, the khamsin have the form of beautiful Arabic women and are fond of seducing religious men away from the tenets of their faith. While they prefer to merely toy with humans, they can certainly hold their own if combat comes up, being capable of spreading disease, forming a dangerous whirlwind, or emanating a heat wave that simultaneously protects them from cold attacks and deals nonlethal damage to those that near it.  Kill-Roy (CR 10 Medium-size Undead) "Kilroy was here": a strange slogan etched by American GIs during World War II and later, often merged with the graffiti of a large-nosed ledge-peeker by the name of Chad whose origins were from the British part of the Allies. Or, at least, that's the real world origin. In Weird War II, finding "Kilroy was here" is a much darker message spread by the entity known as the Kill-Roy. This creature was born Roy Sharpes, a private who ended up dying in the Pearl Harbor raid. Fueled with rage, he came back as a spirit who would drive others to their deaths, stealing their essences and eventually becoming a horrific blood red gestalt of all of the Armed Forces that seeks only the death of the Axis through suicide attacks from American soldiers. The Kill-Roy will possess soldiers and force them to fight at their fullest and die in the heat of battle, their spirits being absorbed into its own as the message "Kilroy was here" magically marks itself on a nearby surface. Even more interesting is that Kill-Roy is an enemy who can only be truly effectively fought with words rather than actions - he'll just rejuvenate and reappear eventually if he is attacked and destroyed, meaning that the only way to deal with him is to free a possessed soldier by convincing Kill-Roy the soldier would do more damage to the enemy alive than dead or to finally put him to rest with a well-researched and convincing argument that its path of violence is in vain and that it should disperse its souls into the afterlife. Kon-Nichiwa Samurai (CR 1 Medium-size Undead) Better known as "that dick thing your GM uses", these entities are the souls of samurai summoned and bound by the Kuromaku into an armored zombie. The kon-nichiwa samurai is deceptive in its low Challenge Rating. Sure, its hit point total is miniscule, but it also regenerates to full health after 5 minutes of being unconscious. The only way to truly kill them is to perform a coup de grace with their own katana or spear after they have been knocked unconscious, a fact that the players probably don't actually know given that the kon-nichiwa are the personal enslaved bodyguards of select Kuromaku. The plus side of all of this is that they have a hilarious death: Horrors of Weird War II posted:When they are released from unholy service, a bright light flashes from the face mask of the armor and beautiful music and the scent of cherry blossoms fills the air. Lebender Schlamm (CR 14 Large Construct) You probably wouldn't have guessed that our toughest monster so far would be a mud golem. That's exactly what the lebender schlamm is, though, being a golem created from the bloody mud of trenches. In addition to the magic immunity that all golems enjoy, the lebender schlamm can shapeshift to sprout tentacles for extra attacks or squeeze through tight spaces as an oozing mass, has high damage reduction combined with an immunity to slashing and piercing damage, can regenerate health as long as it is in contact with the ground, can up its speed once per day in combat, and is capable of engulfing and suffocating foes. Leopard of Rudyaprayag (CR 8 Large Beast) It's a giant leopard with above-human intelligence, the ability to sense traps, and fast healing. It's used by an evil chaos cult to spread disaster during times of war. And...that's pretty much it. Hell, the book doesn't even tell you where Rudyaprayag is (it's a town in the forested mountains of Northern India). Living Fountain (CR 3 Large Construct) Empathic statues found in European towns. They're capable of healing with their waters, but they don't have any attack, movement, or anything else. Really, they are more a magic item of convenience than a monster, and I'm not sure why they are taking up a spot in this bestiary.  Lost Caravan (CR 5 Medium-size Elemental) These earth elementals are actually the spirits of a group of Berber salt merchants who were massacred by raiders centuries ago, now under a compulsion to forever wander the wilderness and steal people's body salt like that one monster in Star Trek. They do this by appearing to those who are lost and starving in the desert, offering them food and drink that actually has a sleeping poison in it. If they fall asleep, a magical jar is placed at their feet that drains them of their salts. If they making the saving throw and stay awake, two hours later the members of the Lost Caravan get pissed off and start slashing around with their sabers and jambiya daggers. They are immortal due to the dying curse of the tribesman that swore vengeance, but they can be thwarted by just beating them up until they are temporarily destroyed or managing to hold out until dawn, since they are incapable of manifesting during the daylight hours. Luna-Tick (CR 1/2 Tiny Vermin) Black ticks with a crescent moon marking on their back that drive people in a paranoid rage as they drain blood from them. Get it?  Master Chef of France (CR 8 Medium-size Humanoid) The master chefs are cannibals who are said to have gotten their secret of human flesh-based immortality from the Marquis de Sade. They are effectively broken into camps of those who only eat the flesh of the dead and those who hunger for fresh human meat and go out to murder them, but both are equally ultra-nationalist and hate the Nazis with a passion that drives them to aid the French resistance movement. Combat-wise, master chefs have high-ranking fast healing and immunity to poison on their side.  Mind Reaper (CR 4 Small Humanoid) Mini-me big-brained Nazi experiments whose shtick is that they love mind-raping people. They are constantly capable of detecting thoughts, and can use this to either rip out pieces of a foe's memory, temporarily stun them, or deal Strength and Dexterity damage. They can also take class levels. Muumuu (CR 3 Large Giant) Besides having a hilariously amusing name, the Bigfoot-like ogres known as the muumuu are feared in the south Pacific for the fact that they come down from their jungle mountain homes to steal away humans as food. They are stron, clever, and can swiftly move around in the trees to ambush Allied and Axis troops moving through the jungle. They're another creature that can advance by class levels, which is always a plus. Nuba Oni (CR 4 Large Monstrous Humanoid) The nuba oni are a tribe of the legendary Japanese oni that have been drafted into military service by the Kuromaku. In addition to being big horned monsters that have a fear-inducing aura, brute strength, and sharp claws, the nuba oni have been trained to use firearms and katanas. They are also heavily resistant to fire, so some have been trained to puncture Allied flamethrower tanks to cause a conflagrating explosion that the nuba oni can easily walk away from compared to the quite possibly dead flamethrower user. Orang-Bati (CR 1 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) These freakish bat-ape-people fly through the jungles of Indonesia and are feared for the fact that they take humans in the dead of night to sacrifice in blood magic rituals. They also happen to believe that they are the rightful ruling species of the planet, but are thankfully of small enough numbers that they can only carry out their domination fanasies on a local scale. Their two notable powers are the ability to release a mournful wail that can induce chaos and panic and, if they happen to be spellcasters, sacrifice a human child once per day to double their 1st level spells per day. Orang-bati can take character classes. --------------------------------------------- Next time: Dragons that aren't, rats that swarm, and NPC monsters that aid.
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May 26, 2013 06:28
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I had planned on getting this post out sooner, but I've been sick as a dog lately. Part 4: Osterkov Dragon to Schatenmeister  Osterkov Dragon (CR 7 Large Magical Beast) When is a dragon not a dragon? When it's...that thing, I guess. While called a dragon people by the people who tell its tales, the Osterkov dragon is a supernatural ox that has been without a head ever since a German warrior lopped it off in battle 1,500 years before World War II began. It was always an unpleasant beast, but it's been driven mad and woken up by all of the fighting going on near its home on the border of Denmark and Germany, and is all too willing to brutalize anyone that enters its forest. The Osterkov dragon's typical attack strategy is to soften up the earth, send vines to entangle a foe, or erect a wall of brambles and thorns, after which it just violently slams its hooves into the prone character. It has a special 4d12 damage attack it can do to characters it has pinnd, which kills them through violent head explosion at 0 HP rather than sending them into the dying state of negative HP like a normal attack. If that wasn't bad enough, it also happens to be immune to any damage other than grappling or a direct strike to its neck stump, both of which are dangerous given that its blood is extremely poisonous - 2d4 Constitution primary, and then 4d4 Constitution secondary, a level of poison I don't think any standard D&D creature has. Oyasuminasai Ninja (CR 4 Medium-size Outsider) Like the kamikaze spirits and kon-nichiwa samurai seen in the last post, these guys are tied to the Kuromaku. Unlike them, however, they are obviously not undead. They are from another dimension but have sworn fealty to the Kuromaku in order to gain access to our world. They are basically just ninja that can teleport through shadows within their line of sight and are weakened by sunlight. Woo. Pacific Trap Plant (CR 2 Medium-size Plant) Giant ferns that have tentacles they use to grapple people and then suck their fluids out. Pain (CR 12 Large Outsider) A being of pure emotion made manifest, a pain is born when mass tragedy illicits such an emotional reaction that it leaves a psychic scar on the area. It's also stupidly dangerous. Not only do its attacks gain 5 feet of range every time it successfully attacks or its foes either fail an attack or fail a Strength check against it, but it also has a save or die attack on its grapple. Its grapple. And someone who dies to that save-or-die grapple? They get sucked in and automatically destroyed, so there's no way to resurrect them either. The final insult to injury is that you can't actually damage a pain with conventionl weapons or magic. You have to instead sit and meditate, spamming Will saves to damage it until it eventually collapses into itself, at which point there's a big Will save you have to make or permanently suffer 1d4+1 Intelligence drain and develop a mental illness. What a fun monster.   PaK Mule (CR 3 Medium-size Undead) PaK mules are the heavy weapons guys of the Nazis' zombie hordes, being super-strong brutes that haul around a special antitank gun known as the PaK HEAT due to the fact that it is so strong it would kill a living being if it was held and fired. Of course, they do kind of have a big flaw in and of themselves - namely, any time you deal damage to a PaK mule, it has to make a Will save or drop its gun and just punch everyone around be they friend or foe. Panzerschrek (CR ? Medium-size Undead) Whoops, an entry where the Challenge Rating was left out of the stat block. Panzerschreks are the ghosts of tank crews that have been summoned back to the mortal coil by Nazi blood mages, namely by taking an antitank weapon such as a rocket launcher and then coating it in magical runes. The panzerschrek is bound to this weapon and cannot get too far from it or it will despawn for a while. It can also be despawned by water or strong winds. In its favor, it does of course have an antitank weapon to blow up tanks with like it's supposed to, and it can also engulf people in smoke and start choking them if it has to face a human foe. A panzerschrek will resurrect unless its antitank weapon is destroyed or dispelled. Papuan Dragon (CR 4 Huge Animal) A dragon that isn't but sort of is. By which I mean it's not a dragon-dragon or the Dragon type, but it's a giant Komodo dragon, so it's sort of a dragon but at the same time...oh, forget it. It's a big-rear end 25 foot long lizard that lives in Papua New Guinea and does giant lizard things - namely eating people. Paul Revere (CR 4 Medium-size Outsider) Like the American super-soldier - remember him? - Paul Revere (who may or may not be the Paul Revere) is a spirit of good that helps out Allies who are in distress. He appears to warn of extremely unpleasant combat situations and how to beat them, with troops that follow his orders getting a free bless spell cast on them. He then disappears mysteriously for reasons nobody remembers.  Pharaoh Cobra (CR 2 Medium-size Magical Beast) These supernatural serpents are said to have been created by ancient Egyptian sorcerers, which makes sense given that they are always found guarding tombs and temples in Egypt and Libya. They are actually more intelligent than the average human and are capable of either just doing straight-up venomous cobra shenanigans or using hypnosis against their foes. Their Lawful Neutral nature means they protect their tombs rather than pick sides in the war, but the Nazis and Italians have been capturing some of them for devious experiments. Phoenix Legionnaire (CR 10 Medium-size Humanoid) While they happen to look like skeletons in Roman legionnaire's armor, these entities are actually members of a mystery cult known as the Legion of the Phoenix that have been caught in a state of half-life ever since they pledged to protect Rome from evil when the flames of war engulfed it. That time has come, and now they rise to fight the Axis when the sounds of battle raise them from their ageless sleep beneath the ground. Phoenix legionnaires have fast healing but are otherwise rather nondescript, even having flat 10s for all of their physical ability scores. There's a reason for that, though - every time the legionnaire hurts an enemy in combat, he gets to roll a 1d6, with any roll other than a 1 granting him a point in either Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity to a maximum of 18. If he can get all three scores to at least 14 before the battle is over, he is fully reborn as a human but gets to retain his fast healing. If he runs out of foes before he can get the prerequisite ability scores? Death awaits. Quisling (CR 4 Small Fey) In addition to looking like miniature versions of Marvel's Kingpin, the quislings are best known for being assholes that love to sew seeds of deceit and betrayal. To achieve that end, they are naturally invisible even when attacking and have several minor illusion-related powers. If they happen to get stuck in an iron circle, though, they are both visible and powerless to do anything but use whatever human-made weapons (typically pistols) they happen to have. Rat Pack (CR 2 Medium-size Magical Beast) Technically a bunch of regular-sized rats that act as a single big rat in a cohesive state that even swarms can't reach, rat packs are clever and aggressive due to the arcane energies they have gained from consuming corpses on a bloodied battlefield. That's about all that can be said about them, though, as their only strategy is to bite things. Resurrected (CR 1 Medium-size Outsider) The Nazis decided to siphon the spirits of famous generals into living humans. For some reason, however, they decided to use total chumps and leadership bonuses to troop morale are about all these creatures are good for. Rubble Kitten (CR 0 Tiny Magical Beast) More of a force than an entity, the rubble kitten will sometimes do acts of GM fiat to heroes that can find one. You have to have Charisma of 16 or higher and be good and kind-hearted to have one appear, and then you have to keep it save or you will get a spate of bad luck (-1 to your bennies for 1d6 game sessions). Stealing one also gives you the same bad luck. The entry is kind of stupid either way. Russian Riser (CR 1 Medium-size Undead) These guys are the corpses of Russian patriots who rise up from the grave to attack those that are hostile to the motherland. They have a claw attack, can burrow to assault someone from below, they can soften up the ground, and...that's it, really. Their low Challenge Rating and lack of anything uber spectacular makes it hard to justify them as being better than just having Russian zombies appear or something.  Salty Dog (CR 3 Medium-size Fey) Part of the grand old tradition of creepy-rear end European fair folk, salty dogs are beasts that resemble big old Irish wolfhounds and tend to mooch off of sailors that take them in as ship dogs. Then they get hungry, and their darker side creeps out. A hungry salty dog shapeshifts into the form of a man and goes to seduce a woman, taking her down to the seaside and then drowning and eating her. It then goes back to its wolfhound form and swims back to its "master's" boat to wait until it needs to feed again. Sand Devil (CR 2 Medium-size Beast) Freaky desert predators that vaguely resemble the shriekers from Tremors 2. They burrow under the sand and wait until they find weak and weary prey, at which point they burst out and attack. They have a rainforest variant called jungle devils that are arboreal instead. Scaevolan (CR 1 Medium-size Humanoid) The Italian attempt at creating brutes, Scaevolans are still human rather than orc-monsters, have their left hands ritually burned off which makes them less effective at combat, and cannot take class levels like normal humans can. Their only real benefit is that they have a +4 bonus to saves against Intimidate checks and a +1 morale bonus to saves and attack rolls. They are literally one of the most useless entities you could possibly make on the Weird War II battlefront. I'm not sure whether they are meant to be making fun of the Italian fascists compared to the Nazis or if the writers genuinely thought this entry was a good idea, and somehow I almost hope it's the former. Scaratrooper (Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid - CR 2 for regular, CR 5 for Sergeant) Speaking of Nazi experimentation, these guys are Nazi bat-people made by experiments on paratroopers. They're strong, swift, can use both human-made weapons and their new claws, have fast healing, and can fly, and are used both to attack ground troops and to sabotage planes mid-flight. Schatenmeister (CR 4 Medium-size Outsider) These creatures are people made out of shadow that come from another dimension that may or may not be the same one the shadow ninjas come from. They have a deal with the Nazis to cross over to our world and act as assassins and spies in exchange, but Hitler is paranoid about them and only allows a few to come across at a time. They have a craving for human essence and have a Constitution draining attack to achieve that, but also happen to suffer Wisdom damage as they siphon Constitution from humans because of how pleasurable they find it. -------------------------------------- Next time: We finish off Horrors of Weird War II with wolf-boobs, kamikaze spiders, porcupine people, and the vote for what Weird War II book will be done after this one.
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May 29, 2013 11:01
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Kavak posted:So, basically an entire army of this? Alien Rope Burn posted:So the theme with some of the Japanese monsters is "names you cannot take at all seriously if you have even a passing familiarity with Japanese"?  Father Wendigo posted:The bestiary is fascinating in how 'all over the place with nowhere to go' it is. There's fairly odd but workable stuff like the Osterkov Dragon, '
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May 29, 2013 14:15
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' stuff like the Quisling, and enough gimmick zombies to pad the book out to a respectable length; all running with a tenuous grasp of the d20 system.
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Part 5: Shkura Devoshka to Zombie Master  Shkura Devoshka (CR 1 Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid) Our first species since the orang-bati that can actually take character classes by the rules as written. The shkura devoshka are Neutral Evil wolf-women who may or may not be the feral degenerate descendents of the Amazons. They are pack hunters that have a higher bonus to flanking bonuses than normal humans and have a bite attack that can also deal Dexterity damage through tendon-ripping selective strikes. They will sometimes steal and rape human men, after which they use them for ritual sacrifices. Charming. Skin Thief (CR 2 Medium-size Humanoid) Apparently not content with having brain-eating shapeshifters, the Nazis decided that they'd also make infiltrators that literally wear other people's skins. That's pretty much the extent of what the skin thief does. Soulless (Template) In a tangled web woven through the Nazi ranks, the Soulless template reflects the ultimate no-win situation. The gist of it is that SS officers sell their souls to demons, Nazi blood mages afraid of their status in the organization then bargain with the demons to eat the souls rather than just buy them and eventually take on the SS officer's body to be able to walk the earth. The template ups class hit dice by one size, adds a +4 natural armor bonus to AC, gives a bite attack, and grants 3/day burning hands. It's not actually made clear whether or not the template reflects the SS officers given power or the demons in their meatsuits, though. Spider-Bomb (CR 2 Medium-size Vermin) Speaking of tangled webs... These monsters are the creation of one Tara Von Laven, who decided that it wasn't just enough to use mad science to grow spiders. No, she decided that after growing spiders to giant size, she'd then strap bombs onto them. They're also literally controlled by a joystick, because why not at this point. Stealthy Stalker (CR 6 Medium-size Humanoid) Basically the Invisible Man. They are Nazi experiments who went psychotic and decided to head out and just kill people. To this end, they are naturally invisible, have +2d6 sneak attack, and also have uncanny dodge. Stealthy stalkers can technically take character classes, but it states that they can only take levels in Grunt.  Strosstrupen (CR 3 Medium-size Humanoid) Nazi supermen. They are resistant to heat and cold, super-strong, and wield hammers made of the magical material vril that they can either bash things with, throw as a missile attack, or use to call down lightning or create minor earthquakes. They can also take class levels, which means that they are actually pretty useful, unlike a certain other Nazi experimental human I can think of *cough*Resurrector*cough*. Taniec Tytan Pracy (CR 9 Large Outsider) Taniec tytan pracy, or dance demons, are summoned by Polish occultists to defend them from the Nazis. In addition to being able to masquerade as a human, the dance demons can perform dances that can cause confusion, deal nonlethal damage, or bring forth the ever popular save-or-die touch attack. Terracotta Warrior (CR 2 Medium-size Construct) Unlike the real world terracotta warriors, these ones were made by emperors other than Shi Huang Di and were imbued with the occult energies of human sacrifices. The Japanese raiding Chinese tombs during the war have woken up these warriors, and they are now hellbent to take back the treasures of the tombs they guarded. They wield crossbows, swords, and spears and are immune to magic, but otherwise are sort of just generic low-level constructs. Tikbalang (CR 4 Medium-size Fey) Tikbalangs are horse-headed trickster spirits from Filipino mythology. In the incarnation Weird War II presents, they've been made incorporeal for some reason, have selective invisibility, and can use what the game calls "Spell tricks": Horrors of Weird War II posted:The range of possible pranks is nearly limitless. The effects only ever do subdual damage and never last more then a day. War Masters should consider spell tricks an unlimited amount of 1st level spells, with the restriction that they have to be funny Torture Master (CR 3 Medium-size Humanoid) A heinous middle-aged German man, the Torture Master has occult powers that allow him to heighten someone's sense of pain and heal them up so that he can torture them repeatedly without having them die. It doesn't state that he is actually allied with the Nazis, simply that have loves doing torture and getting secrets, so he may or may not actually have any ties to Hitler and his crew. The Torture Master advances by character class, which means he is one of the few cases of a unique entity that you can customize. Trench Foot (CR 2 Small Vermin) Trench foot is a Nazi-juiced mold that eats through the body. Seeing as this has no actual ability scores, movement, or stats to speak of other than a spore "attack", this really should be classified as a hazard. You only have an initial saving throw against the mold - if you fail that, it progresses until you either die or amputate the infected limb. Uber Child (CR 2 Medium-size Fey) The uber children are fast-grown Aryan fairy clones that climb up walls, use any weapon, and...that's pretty much it. They can't even gain class levels. Uberhund (CR 2 Medium-size Beast) and Uberwolf (CR 3 Large Beast) Large, clever German shepherds and large, clever wolves, respectively. They're so bland I'm rather curious as to why they weren't in the core book or some sourcebook with a non-monster focus.  Upturned (CR 5 Medium-size Undead) The shambling upturned are the undead remnants of World War I soldiers that have clawed their way up to fight everyone in World War II. They can catch enemies flat-footed by pretending to be just another part of a mass grave and also exude mustard gas from their bodies. Other than that, though, they're pretty standard zombie types. Vandal (Humanoid with CR equal to class level - example Vandal is a Grunt 1/Barbarian 3) The Vandals are Neanderthal-like warriors created through Nazi experimentation. Since Hitler doesn't trust them (big surprise) due to their loyalty to their officers over him, he tends to send Vandals into the most dangerous missions possible. Vandals advance by class level but must have at least one level in Barbarian, and their ability modifiers are +2 Strength, -2 Wisdom, and -2 Charisma. They are pretty much the only non-human species that are specifically called out as being potentially used by player characters, as there is a small section on the potential of having a player be captured and experimented on as part of the Vandal project before escaping back to their unit. War Geist (CR ? Medium-size Undead) Whoops, here's another entry that had the Challenge Rating left off. If you couldn't guess from their name, war geists are ghosts of war who live to bring out fear that they can feed on. They gain one hit point every time someone falls for the hallucinations of the terrors of war that the geists create, and they can also induce fatigue through continued use of their hallucinatory powers. Wehrmacht Needler (CR 5 Medium-size Humanoid) Yet another entity that can take class levels...odd that we're starting to actually get a flow of those so late in the title. Wehrmacht needlers are crazy German soldiers who have decided to coat themselves in warding runes before plunging spikes and needles into every part of their body, making them a porcupine-like walking defensive emplacement. Their spines are damaging in close combat, and on top of that they are immune to non-magical subdual/nonlethal damage and have damage reduction. Ever helpful, there is a suggestion from the text that they should be fought in tight corridors and potentially have their spikes laced with poison.  Yena (CR 4 Medium-size Shapeshifter) The yena is an occultist who can take the form of a hyena. They're found scattered throughout Africa and the Middle East, preferring to live lives either as hermits or as manipulative powers behind the throne, and at least some of them have joined up with the Nazis or local fascist groups. Yenas are natural spellcasters that can innately cast as a 3rd level Sorcerer, and in hyena form their bone-crushing jaws can allow them to deal Strength damage on top of HP damage. Yena can take class levels, typically either Sorcerer to augment their innate spellcasting or some form of charismatic and coercive class. Also, I'm kind of baffled at that name. There are real world legends of people who become hyenas or hyenas that have magical powers, like the bouda and the kaftar, so why not use one of those instead of hyena without the H? Yofune Nushi (CR 7 Huge Magical Beast) These giant one-eyed eel monsters are pretty much the only supernatural creature used by the Imperial Japanese Navy rather than kept strictly by the Kuromaku. Their skin secretes an acidic slime and their huge size means that they are quite physically dangerous, and on top of that three or more yofune nushi within a mile of each other causes a storm to rage around them. Zombie Master (5th level Human Sorcerer) These guys are simply, as stated above, humans with 5 levels of Sorcerer that happen to have learned two unique abilities. One is the ability to create a paralytic powder that can be blown at enemies, while the other is the art of the living dead. When raised, these unique zombies are immune to turning and regenerate health. The only way to kill a zombie master's living dead creations is by dismembering the body and putting each part to rest in a different grave or filling the corpse's mouth with salt. ----------------------------------------------- And with that, we are finished with Horrors of Weird War II. Feel free to vote on which Weird War II sourcebook you want to see next. Your options are... Dead From Above: Airplane rules. Africa Korpse: Italians, engineers, Mighty Whitey the prestige class, and trying to juggle Africa-Korps-as-Lawful-Neutral with Nazi zombies. Hell Freezes Over: Russians, shamans, and  .Land of the Rising Dead: Sailors, Aussies, Japanese, and demon-worshipping jungle savages.
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May 29, 2013 16:44
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Pththya-lyi posted:Hey gently caress you good luck kittens are awesome, and are much less ridiculous than Axis Apes and zombies and whatnot. It also seems that we have a winner, as  Hell Freezes Over has swept the voting board. Part 1: Chapter 1's Prescient Naming Introduction to Chapter 1, skills, and feats Our introduction to the Russians in Weird War II is a brief statement about how Russians used lovely weapons and inferior tactics and only won battles because of sheer numbers, followed by the introduction of SOPA. No, not that SOPA, this is a book from 2003. These guys are the Soviet Office of Paranormal Activity, the Russian equivalent of the OSI. SOPA is ddifferent from their western counterparts in several facets - they are not tied to the Sons of Solomon since they betrayed them during Stalin's Great Purge, they only accept people who actually killed a Nazi paranormal entity rather than just people who have seen them, they hoard magical items a lot more frequently, and their atheistic bent means there are fewer Chaplains. Once World War II ends and the Cold War begins, the changing tide will lead to an occult war between the OSI and SOPA. Second up are new skills and feats. The skills are Ammo and Explosive Manufacturing (you can make bombs, Molotov cocktails, bullets, or artillery shells), Knowledge-Politics (it's a Knowledge variant), Skiing (a very specific fusion of Jump and Tumble), and Winter Survival (should probably just be new uses of Survival). The initial feats are mostly pretty lackluster bonuses to either melee or firearms combat, but there are two that are noteworthy - Party Member gives you a bonus to Diplomacy checks and promotions as long as you are interacting with the Communist Party, while Tank Immobilization lets you use flamethrowers, Molotov cocktails, or antitank guns to specifically target a tank's suspension and more easily deal critical damage to it. We also get our introduction to weird feats. While they didn't appear in the core rulebook for some reason, they appear in every sourcebook other than Horrors of Weird War II. Weird feats are, as their name implies, weird - some sort of supernatural stimulus has given your character a freaky power. There are four specific ones presented for Hell Freezes Over: Below Zero Resistance gives you cold immunity but makes you have to do Fortitude saves or take nonlethal damage in temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, Bullet Proof makes you immune to non-critical bullet shots from anything smaller than a 20mm bullet, Propaganda Prophet lets you cast mass suggestion on crowds after long speeches but makes you a target for the Communist Party if you aren't saying what Stalin wants you to say, and Vodka Healing lets you heal 1d6 points of damage for every 12 ounces of vodka you drink. Character Classes Before we get into full-on new classes, we get some archetypes for classes from Weird War II. Unlike the class archetypes you'd expect frm 3.5, however, Weird War II's archetypes are more often than not just glorified equipment packages.
As for actual new classes, there are three.
Prestige classes are a lot simpler. The OSI Adept, OSI Operative, and OSI Chaplain are renamed SOPA Adept, SOPA Operative, and SOPA Clergy, and there's a new prestige class called the Guardsman. With d12 hit dice an full Base Attack Bonus progression, the Guardsman is meant to be the party tank. On the downside, they only have some bonus feats every other level and no unique class features to make them stand out as anything but "the tank". ------------------------------------------------- Next time: chapter 2's equipment and chapter 3's history.
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May 30, 2013 06:08
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without repercussions, while the other allows him to make Knowledge (Politics) checks to impose a mind control ability on his subordinates.
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Part 2: Chapter 2: Ordinance and Equipment New gear related to the Russians and the Russian front starts out our small but required pair of chapters in the review.
Chapter 3: The Great Patriotic War Time for a history lesson! This chapter starts with an explanation of the non-aggression pact between the Soviets and the Axis, as well as how it cracked with the Winter War of Russia and Finland. There's also a bit of smugness about Stalin supposedly not quite expecting the German assault on Russia: Weird War II: Hell Freezes Over posted:Hitler even made his obsession for living space known 16 years before Directive no. 21 in his book Mein Kampf(My Struggle), '…to guarantee to the German nation the soil and territory to which it is entitled on this earth, we are bound to think first of Russia and her border states.' Stalin obviously wasn’t a big reader.  I mean, it's not like we Americans ever underestimated Hitler."After that gloating, the discussion further heads on to talk about Hitler's hubris and refusal to listen to Goebbels' statements about how simultaneously attacking Russia and the UK was a bad idea, the delay of the Russian conflict thanks to Mussolini getting the Axis into a fight with Greece and Yugoslavia, the beginning of the German assault and Operation Barbarossa, Leningrad, the winter offensive, Stalingrad, and most of the other general points of the eastern European front up to the Red Army rolling into the Reichstag at the end of the war. What we really care about is the alt-history stuff, though. One of the most repeated points is the topic of vampires. In Weird War II, Hitler's biggest goal is to transform himself into a vampire, and there's no shortage of them in eastern Europe. One of the big plot points for SOPA in the siege of Berlin is that rather than committing suicide like in our world, Hitler gets his vampire formula and bolts from Berlin, leading to a climactic final fight between Russians and vampire Hitler at the Swiss outpost that leads into the Hollow Earth. The Hollow Earth itself may or may not be a cleanup mission in and of itself, as it's posited that more than a few Nazis carved out their own small empires within the savage realm of dinosaurs and Neanderthals found beneath the Alps. ------------------------------------------------ Next time: New Nazi NPCs, the Finns, and other eastern European vampire lords, hags, and yetis.
Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jun 1, 2013 |
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Jun 1, 2013 12:34
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Part 3: Chapter 4's Fang Fascination It's time for the most notable chapter of Hell Freezes Over, entitled Eastern Opposition. Additional German Opposition While the core rulebook's German NPCs were heavily based with generic SS soldiers, Hell Freezes Over gives much more specific groups. Details are given on the Eisatzgruppen (the monstrous regiments that doled out most of the ethnic cleansings of the Nazi ranks), the Berlin guards of the Volkssturm, the infamous Hitler Youth, and non-Nazi but pro-Axis nationalist groups such as those from Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. The specific ones statted out are the Eisatzgruppen soldier (Grunt 6), Eisatzgruppen (Officer 9), Hitler Youth (Grunt 1), Volkssturm (no class levels), Finnish soldier (Grunt 2), Finnish officer (Officer 5), minor Axis soldier (Grunt 1), and minor Axis officer (Officer 1). Vampires In real life, the Nazis were willing to give Hungary the ownership of Transylvania as punishment for Romania's Allied allegiances during the first World War. In Weird War II, however, the purpose is a more sinister attempt to keep Hungary and Romania at each others' throats while the Nazis sneak in and hunt for vampires for Hitler's vampire serum. They also have their eyes on scattered vampire villages in frosty Siberia and the artifacts created and hidden by various ancient and powerful vampires. One of the vampires you might encounter is, of course, himself. Vlad Dracula is tied to several supernatural creatures at once rather than just the vampire, as it is said that he sought an audience with the Devil himself while astride a dragon, and that some blood mages attempt to do the same.New Monsters for the Russian Front Hell Freezes Over gives us a total of 11 new monsters.
---------------------------------------------------- With our trip through the frozen hell being over, the Weird War II books left are Afrika Korpse, Dead From Above, and Land of the Rising Dead. Which one comes next is up to you.
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Jun 2, 2013 14:25
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wdarkk posted:I'm a bit disappointed in Hell Freezes over. Baba Yaga having whatever class levels the GM things would be best is good, but it's really missing some of the more creative stuff. I mean Lysenko is around for this, where's the weird hybrid plant/animal monsters? I plan on doing Afrika Korpse next, though, which has cultural appropriation packaged for player characters and trying to untangle "we want Rommel and his corps to be Lawful Neutral" with "we have Nazi zombies rawr".
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Jun 3, 2013 19:59
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 Part 1: Chapter 1's Appropriation Station Welcome to Afrika Korpse, the Weird War II sourcebook that focuses on the North African conflict of the early war. This means we're going to be getting a lot of heat, sand, Italians, and Rommel worship. Like any journey, though, it starts with a step, and that step is of course the character options chapter. Starting Packages A list of regiments found in the Allied side of the North African conflict. As they are basically meant to be a quick list of items, skills, and feats for a GM to give a 1st level NPC from that regiment rather than any new game rules, we'll just skip past it. New Skills and Feats To start off actual new content, we begin with a few new skills. Entrench lets you roll to create cover, Observation and Assessment is a rather stupid skill that is basically a Spot check and Knowledge check rolled into one new skill, and Wireless Telegraphy lets you correctly use telegraphs and is thus probably the only of the three that is actually warranted as a new skill rather than new use of an old skill. For new feats, there's mostly a lot of sand acclimation going on. Arid Acclimatization ups the lowest temperature considered to be extreme heat for you, Desert Defenses grants skill bonuses to Demolition, Hide, and Entrench in the desert, Desert Fox is the same but for Listen, Move Silently, and Spot, Sahara Lore is the same thing for Knowledge and Gather Information, and Find Water helps you more easily find water. There are a few interesting unrelated feats, however. The Elan feat grants a bonus to Will saves and melee charges while also lowering the penalties suffered when using pistols, shotguns, or sub-machne guns in melee combat, the Honest Face grants you a bonus to Diplomacy and Gather Information as long as you don't lie or deceive, and then the Gone Native feat....wait, the what? "Weird War II: Afrika Korpse posted:You exhibit an affinity for local customs, get along easily with natives, and know enough about their ways to pass yourself off as one of them, especially among those unfamiliar with their culture (although blonde hair and blue eyes might impose a penalty). The feat would almost be serviceable for its primary use, which is a collection of skill bonuses when interaction with a culture you are innately familiar with. You could have called it Cultural Studies or something. But no, it also grants a bonus to duping non-native people who don't have the Gone Native feat because you're just that convincing as another ethnicity. At least the weird feats this time don't have anything quite as awkward as that. Mine Sense lets you detect mines nearby but forces you to make a Will save or become paranoid and cower when you find them, Radio Head lets you hear radio transmissions telepathically but dulls your actual senses of hearing and sight, Rune Tattoo grants you a +2 bonus to any ability score other than Charisma but causes you to suffer a -2 Charisma penalty due to an unsettling aura about you, Solar Healing lets you heal faster in sunlight but deprives you of even standard natural healing in darkness, and Trembling Hands makes your hands shiver to warn you of a potentially dangerous action but obviously causes penalties to skills related to working with your hands during that time. New Prestige Classes
------------------------------- Next time, we go through the remaining three chapters of the book. Afrika Korpse is surprisingly short.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:07
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Alien Rope Burn posted:You may think after Set "oh no, they can't just be making Anubis into a generic evil guy too", and I just want to say oh yes they can. He's the god of death! The god of transition! The god of the unknown! Anyway, he was the son of Osiris and helped kill him. Wait, kill him? Isn't that pretty much the precise opposite of his role in the myth, where he helps rebuild Osiris? Well, whatever. He's obviously way cooler as a generic necromancer with a puppyhead on. Evil Mastermind posted:NEXT TIME: Pulp Powers and Gadgets...Torg style!
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Jun 9, 2013 23:27
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Part 2: Of Rotting and Rommel Chapter 2: Ordinance and Equipment Most of the new equipment added this time is related to Italy, though there's also some more German material.
Chapter 3: Operational Overview The prerequisite GMing chapter starts with a timeline of the African conflict from Italy's declaration of war to Rommel's departure from northern Africa, but quickly segues into actual game rules. These start with talk about the harsh terrain of northern Africa. The muddy traps of salt marshes, rugged passes of desert mountains, and minefield-laden scrub are only made worse by blistering heat in the day and bitter cold at night or the threat of sandstorms. Indeed, if your character happens to be an arcane spellcaster, there is a 5th level spell called summon khamsin that lets you whip up a hot sandstorm to throw at your foes. It does lead to some awkward misunderstanding if you recall that the bestiary happened to have a monster called the khamsin as well, though. The third section of the GMing chapter is focused on places to go and people to see. After noting the basics on potential African bases of operation during World War II such as Cairo, Casablanca, Tobruk, Tripoli, and Benghazi - the last of which has an adventure hook for a special forces group to invade it and take out forces controlling it, which may be awkward to modern audiences - there's a laundry list of big names in northern Africa on both the Allied and Axis sides. The one who gets the most  is, of course, Rommel himself. Not only does he get two pages of exposition compared to a few paragraphs for men such as Patton, Rommel is the only named historical figure of the lot that gets a stat block. He's a Lawful Neutral 17th level Officer, if you were curious.Last are a collection of new NPCs. While the majority of these are your standard Grunt 1 or Officer 4 with specifically desert-themed skills, feats, and equipment, some NPCs of note are the completely fictional Special Salvage Group Mages. These guys are the classic Lawful Evil Nazi blood mages that love to torture people, mutate them, and raise a bunch of zombies. Rommel is stated to have taught them the ways of desert warfare and allowed them to infiltrate standard German infantry units, but somehow he's still totally Lawful Neutral guys because his units didn't do all the evil zombie stuff. They just facilitated it, that's totally different, right? Chapter 4: Bestiary
---------------------------------- Next time: The bland and the blue as we cover the entirety of Dead From Above in one sweeping post.
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Jun 21, 2013 21:25
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After a long hiatus of attempting to figure out how to make Dead From Above funny, I think I'm going to have to throw in the towel and admit that the final two books of Weird War II aren't going to be getting reviews. Dead From Above is abysmally boring. It's good from a game standpoint, as obviously aircraft rules are a pretty drat important thing for a World War II game, but from a review standpoint it's just...there. Land of the Rising Dead also has its worst attributes stuffed away in a back-of-the-book adventure, so that's not quite going anywhere either. Long story short: I'd say mark Weird War II as abandoned, as it's not going any further. As for what I'll be doing next for the thread when I feel up to it, I'm thinking of maybe actually going off the beaten path. Rather than reviewing larger books like we are prone to doing, I was thinking of maybe doing a "snapshots" feature where each post is a collection of multiple little supplements from a specific creator such as Chris Fields. I may also intersperse those with reviews of some third party books for d20 Modern.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:09
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Kavak posted:Can we at least get a snapshot of the adventure? Is it really racist, really railroady, really poorly balanced, etc.? And the kicker? There are heroic Papuans in the adventure as well...but they're the loyal plantation servants of a rich Aussie.  The adventure is also poorly balanced, since you asked. The witch doctor is a level 15 Adept, while the characters for the adventure are stated to be around level 3 to 5. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 00:34
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Remember how I said that I'd be trying the idea of vignette-style snapshots posts with a collection of small RPG supplements from one publisher, such as Chris Field? Well guess who I decided would be the best water-tester for the idea  As I've mentioned before, d20 Modern is my roleplaying game system of choice. Yes, as with almost anything, it's flawed, but it was the first roleplaying game I ever played rather than read, the first I dug deep into, and it has stuck with me in my consciousness. What a shame, then, that I have to give it a snapshots introduction in such a way as this. D20 Modern doesn't exactly have many supplemental publishers anymore. Some of the most prominent ones either disappeared or jumped ship to either True20 or Savage Worlds, leaving the role of most prominent vanguard of paid supplements for the system to...Chris A. Field. Chris is a roleplaying game freelancer who has managed to net work with five different third party publishers over the years, describes himself as a creator of "innovative and unusual roleplaying games" which I guess is true in the most broad sense, likes Rifts, and is a fan of RPGPundit. He's also pro-choice and pro-creator's rights, though, so I guess we can't call him all bad. We can, however, call the majority of his work pretty loving insane. I mean, let's quote from the spell list one of his works in progress for starters: Chris Field posted:Sexy Furover (restyle a felinoid’s pelt to grant a +1 bonus on sexually oriented Diplomacy checks for a day)  Need I say more? ...Probably not, but I'm going to anyway. FATAL and Friends writers far braver than I have already delved into the depths of the larger sourcebooks of Field's such as the Black Tokyo, PsiWatch, and Otherverse series, but I'm going to do my duty as a cleanup crew for this snapshot post. Advanced Class Updates A series from Skorched Urf Studios, Advanced Class Updates consists of supplementals that each deal with one advanced class (basically a prestige class that has 10 levels - for whatever reason, d20 Modern decided to only call 5 level prestige classes by the name of prestige class). While not entirely written by Field, he does make up a brunt of the supplements in this line. American Nomad: The American Nomad is an advanced class that, in spite of its name, is a worldwide concept: that of the wandering hero who can sniff out problems better than a bloodhound and is hell-bent on solving them. While class is for the most part a defensive-oriented version of the combat-oriented Martial Artist from Wizards of the Coast's core d20 Modern rules, it also has some neat new ideas such as having a small pool of temporary action points that you gain the first time you enter a town that must be used in order to solve that town's problems and the ability to take 10 on Sense Motive checks to sniff out a town's problems. An actually good idea and execution by Field to start us off? Don't worry, it's very much a fluke. Cold Bringer: A generic cryomancer-type class. Not really anything objectionable, but the only thing that is particularly weird about it is that you need to be able to speak Russian to take the class. Not be part of a Russian experiment as stated by the flavor text of the class, just speak Russian. Digital Sorcerer: Another unironically interesting idea in the form of a spellcaster that augment themselves with subdermal USB ports that allow them to "download" their spells rather than store them in a traditional spellbook. They are also capable of creating EMP fields and eventually using their computer and magical knowhow to teleport to the source computer of a website. The new spells that they get, however, show them to be huge assholes. These include a spell that deals untyped nonlethal damage when anyone in the spell's radius does an action the Digital Sorcerer deems as rude, a shoplifting spell, a spell that causes the target's gut flora to rebel and eat them from within, and a spell that deals more damage the wealthier its target is. The piece de resistance, however, is the spell Biological Imperative, where classic Fieldian hallmarks begin to show up on our journey: Digital Sorcerer Spell List posted:You take basic control over the target’s bodily functions. With a shouted word, you can induce vomiting, uncontrollable bowel movements, heart palpitation, short lived seizures, orgasmic contractions, or many other bodily functions. The victim might experience extreme pain or pleasure, but is virtually crippled by this vicious, invasive spell. Forbidden: And with this, we plunge head-first into full-on Classic Chris Fields with an advanced class for a BDSM mage! With this class, you too can conjure psychic chains, force a save-or-die with your gimp mask, and even become immortal and raise people from the dead. I...I...what? Gravity Slinger: A generic telekinesis-focused advanced class, which Field of course decides to "spice up" by having the introductory fiction for the class involve a pedophile rapist having his bones snapped one by one by a little girl gravity slinger. Grendel Spawn: An advanced class that emulates the powers of cannibal giants such as the wendigo and is in no way related to the monster of the same name from Wizards of the Coast's Urban Arcana campaign book. Field, being Field, decides that a good choice of introductory fiction to get us to want to play this class is an ad executive Grendel Spawn eating a hooker and some FBI agents. Hollowpoint Monk: Congrats on making a perfectly useable gun-fu class awkward by unironically using the term "Chinaman". Innocent: I was sure I mentioned this class back when Bitchtits was doing the rundown of Black Tokyo, and it turns out I was right. I posted:The character is basically an adult-child that can change their age category at will and learns such class features as magic that cannot be used to kill unless you spend an action point, a de-aging touch attack, and the crafting of clockwork soldiers. Lightweaver: A class that lets you manipulate light and eventually transform into a being of light. Field, of course, describes transforming into pure energy as being like an orgasm. Because why wouldn't power be associated with sex at this point? Luchadore: If you were expecting a mundane fighting-based advanced class, you came to the wrong place. Field's Luchadores are all monster hunters whose masks give them superpowers such as punching incorporeal creatures and being able to intimidate undead even if they are mindless. Mind Reaper: A Psiblade by any other name would make psychic blades just the same. NeoWitch Avenger and Guardian: Anti-witch hunter witches, proving that even classes get into evolutionary arms races. The NeoWitch Avenger is an offensive class with blood magic and Constitution draining powers, while the NeoWitch Guardian is a defensive class that can use a broom as both a flying tool and a quarterstaff. Surprisingly unoffensive classes for Field, even if the name "NeoWitch" is a really stupid-looking without a hyphen. Perfect Archer: Green Arrow: the advanced class. This would be our best shot at replicating the balance of good game design and non-Fieldian fluff since the American Nomad, but the introductory text describes a teenage Perfect Archer as "faggoty". Our man Field is pretty good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Prince of Doggs: Male rappers who literally become ravening beasts. The class features have such creative names as "Foam at Da Mouth", "Dark Eyez", and "Muzzle 'Em". I don't think I even need to make snarky jokes at this one, it speaks for itself. SLAM (Subspace Looped Armor Materialization) Soldier: This advanced class is apparently meant to be for the PsiWatch setting, so I have no idea why the hell it wouldn't be in a PsiWatch sourcebook instead. This class is entirely focused around letting you teleport in requisitioned gear.  Scion of Masada: You are a Hassidic Jew who has become a mystic assassin for Mossad. You are so Jewish that Jewish martyr ghosts flock to you and give you superpowers that grant you strength when fighting elementals, demons, and conveniently undefined "enemies of Israel". You can also get possessed by martyr spirits to temporarily have no need to use your lungs (wha?) and have automatic critical hits with your sacred martyr-knives. Sentai Spectrum Ranger: You're a Power Ranger. That's about the only way to say it. For whatever reason, rather than giving a list of archetypes you could apply, the type of Power Ranger role you get is defined by your suit color, like so: Sentai Spectrum Ranger posted:Pink Sentai Rangers are compassionate and sexy healers. They’re often flirtous and seemingly shallow, but they’re committed to getting all their troops home in one peice. Add Bluff and Treat Injury as class skills. The Pink Sentai Ranger recieves a +1 bonus on all Bluff checks made against someone who finds her sexually attractive, and recieves the Surgery feat. Shotgun Surgeon: The Perfect Archer advanced class, but with shotguns instead of bows. Skele-Teen: An advanced class that gives you a collection of abilities associated with the whole "zombie lord" archetype. This would be okay on its own, but Field decided that the class would be restricted to teenagers that committed suicide after years of abuse and rape from their parents. is with you, Field?!Soul Collector: Wasn't this an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000? Unbound Soul: You just spent 10 levels in an advanced class to get the powers of a ghost instead of taking a template. Bet you feel pretty dumb after that, huh? Voidsparrow: Another class stated to be meant for PsiWatch, this time one that lets you be a space-flying cyborg who fights starships and pretends to be a bird-person. There's also a class feature that lets you get a marriage bond with another member of your "flock", because Field. Giants in the Earth After all of those advanced classes, I'm going to wrap this up with a bestiary of all things. If you couldn't guess, I love dinosaurs. Few people don't. Chris Field certainly doesn't, given he decided to do a dinosaur bestiary. Somehow, though, he managed to gently caress the simple premise of a dinosaur-centric monster manual up. I'm fine with reasonable speculation such as those that show up in the excellent palaeontological book All Yesterdays by Darren Naish and John Conway, but Field apparently decided that there was a point where logic just hinders you. While some of his speculation is quite reasonable, such as having the fish-feeding dinosaur Baryonyx have a septic bite thanks to rotting flesh caught up in its ragged teeth, there are a few that must be noted for how far beyond logic they go. Microraptor: A small theropod from the now famous feather-filled fossil beds of China, Microraptor has sailed on a breeze of popularity thanks to having four wings. Field, however, thinks that rather than being one of the evolutionary innovators of flight, Microraptor was an amphibious creature that used its four wings to paddle through prehistoric swamps. Carcharodontosaurus: While Field makes a big statement at the beginning of this tome that his dinosaurs are totally up to date and realistic, he decides to give the large north African apex predator Carcharodontosaurus this special quality: Giants in the Earth posted:Mindless (EX): The Carcharodontosaur has one of the smallest and most basic brains in the dinosaur kingdom. It is a mindless, predatory eating machine, driven purely by instinct. The creature is completely immune to all mind-influencing effects, as if it were vermin. The dinosaur cannot be communicated with, trained or influenced. Spinosaurus: Spinosaurus: is pretty upfront about what it probably did in life: big "fishhook" claws, crocodile-like head, and namesake sail produce a picture of a well-adapted giant coastal carnivore. Field, however, claims that Spinosaurus should be a saurian cheetah that runs at high speeds and leaps at its prey. Triceratops For this dinosaur that needs no introduction, Field decides that a "logical" hypothesis is that its horns leak neurotoxic venom. Not only do venom-producing bones tend to have clear grooves, but why the hell would you even think that? Is the idea of a 30 foot long cow-rhino from hell goring you to death not deterrence enough? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And with that, you've probably had more Chris Field in one dose than you would have ever desired and the first test run of the "Snapshots" style FATAL and Friends post has been made. Whether it's a successful idea or not, I'll probably be doing a more traditional post that deals with a singular book next time. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Sep 29, 2013 |
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Sep 29, 2013 06:52
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 It's not often that you see the creators of a product tied to a big name company end up moving to a third party label to make more stuff for that same product: the Game Mechanics are a strong exception to this. Made up of a team of Wizards of the Coast contributors and freelancers including JD Wiker, Stan!, Monte and Sue Cook, Marc “Sparky” Schmalz, and Rich Redman that gathered forces after fears of corporate layoffs, TGM produced four major supplements (nine in PDF form, as they are split into parts as PDF) to the d20 Modern ruleset. And really, who better to start with for non-Fieldian d20 Modern guides than with the people who created it in the first place? Our first TGM title will aptly be the first one, the Modern Player’s Companion, a sourcebook comparable to the whole “Player’s Handbook 2+” idea Dungeons and Dragons went with. I will be reviewing them in the Modern Player's Companion and Modern Player's Companion II format the PDFs provided rather than as one single book like the print version, as this is  The Occupational Class of ’04 Occupations It turns out that a book titled “Modern Player’s Companion” ends up focusing mostly on materials for the player. Shocking, I know. The first of these options you’ll end up getting are occupations. One of the big things about d20 Modern is that role is not tied to class alone. Occupations in a nutshell: in addition to base, advanced, and prestige classes, you have your occupation, which reflects what job your character did or is doing or what lot in life they happen to have. These grant you the choice to add extra class skills, feats, Reputation, and/or wealth on top of what your class would normally get. This means that while it's logical to have the Military occupation for a character who has levels in Smart Hero and Soldier, you could just as easily have the same classes combined with the Domestic occupation to make Peyote the War Gardener or whatever. Out of the Open Game License-approved d20 Modern books from Wizards of the Coast themselves, we ended up getting a strong headstart with 33 occupations: Academic, Adventurer, Athlete, Blue Collar, Celebrity, Creative, Criminal, Dilettante, Doctor, Emergency Services, Entrepreneur, Investigative, Law Enforcement, Military, Religious, Rural, Student, Technician, and White Collar from the d20 Modern Core Rulebook, the Apothecary, Hedge Wizard, Novitiate, Psychic, Shadow Scholar, and Squire from Urban Arcana, and the Astronaut Trainee, Colonist, Drifter, Gladiator, Heir, Outcast, Scavenger, and Transporter from d20 Future. The Modern Player’s Companion adds seven more to the mix to patch up holes the creators saw in the occupation list.
Advanced Classes While I won’t be listing them out this time as they don’t really have any “shame, shame, overlap” I feel from some of the occupations, it is worth noting that d20 Modern’s OGL “core books” provided a total of 44 advanced (basically always10 level prestige classes that are usually meant to be taken at your fourth character level) and prestige (always 5 level....erm, well, prestige classes...that are meant to be taken around your tenth or eleventh character level) classes. Even with that many, they somehow managed to not really have an overlap problem with the advanced classes the Modern Player's Companion provides.
Feats There are a total of 26 new feats in the Modern Player's Companion, of which five are expansions on the Dodge feat tree and another five are reprinted from the gun nut equipment sourcebook UltraModern Firearms. While some of the feats are pretty boring or straightforward things such as Bull's Eye (spend an action point to automatically confirm a critical hit with a firearm), Haggle (you can lower or raise the price of an item you are buying/selling by one Purchase DC if you make a successful Bluff or Diplomacy check), or Improved Dead Aim (a +3 bonus on a full round of aiming a gun shot over Dead Aim's +2 bonus! ), there are some interesting ones worthy of note.
 Notes and other GM fun Class Combinations Arguably something for GMs looking for NPCs more than the players, there is a section in the Modern Player's Companion that introduces what the designers call a class combination. This is basically a "recipe" on specific base classes, talents, and feats to combine together to make a specific character concept instead of trying to head straight for an advanced or prestige class. The recipes provided are for an archaeologist (Smart/Dedicated with a few levels of Charismatic spattered in), bouncer (Tough/Strong/Charismatic), counselor (Dedicated/Charismatic with a few levels of Smart), entrepeneur (Charismatic/Dedicated with a single level dip into Smart Hero to get more skill focus), lawyer (Smart/Charismatic with a couple of levels in Dedicated), lay clergy (Dedicated/Charismatic with one level dip in Tough Hero to get the talent Remain Conscious), pro athlete (Strong/Fast with a couple of dips into Tough), Reporter (Dedicated/Charismatic), and rock star (almost entirely Charismatic Hero, but with three one-level dips: a level in Fast Hero to get the talent Evasion, a level in Dedicated Hero to get the talent Empathy, and a level in Tough Hero to get the talent Second Wind). Equipment While there are a few modern amenities eschewed in the d20 Modern Core Rulebook such as laser pointers and duffel bags that get their stats here, the brunt of new equipment in the Modern Player’s Companion is made up of survival gear. Canteens and flasks, rain gear and waders, and fishing gear are all given for those adventurers who happen to not stay in the city all the time. Perhaps more relevant, however, are the idea of equipment packages. These are quick-select packages for a specific starting occupation that have a list of items for standard Wealth and further items added at Wealth bonuses of +5, +7, and +9 – they’re stated to be used for quick player character creation, but I could see them being just as good for fast NPC gear. The occupations that get listed equipment packages are Adventurer, Criminal, Law Enforcement, and Technician. Notes of note While technically not a segment unto themselves, this post wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the designer’s notes that are found in green text blocks scattered around the title. These are "why did we do what we did?" posts on the design process of d20 Modern and include such topics as the purpose of occupations (I already explained this), why having a combo of base classes instead of heading into an advanced class may be better for your character concept, and the reasoning behind what is made an advanced or prestige class feature versus what is made a feat (wider access [feats] vs. exclusivity [class features]). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next time: the Modern Player’s Companion 2. Fossilized Rappy fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Oct 4, 2013 |
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Oct 4, 2013 18:54
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AccidentalHipster posted:Do you mind posting some of the funnier pictures with their captions? I remember there being a few gems, like the one with the Archaeologist and the Rock Star nerding out together over a skull. Alien Rope Burn posted:But who would take on such a terrible curse? Even I haven't been able to get myself to look at Pathfinder supplements after writing it up. Majuju posted:Fear not, friends. I shall shoulder this terrible burden. I shall become the very embodiment of Moondog Greenberg, Tough Hero.
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Oct 5, 2013 07:07
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