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I certainly hope this game doesn't have arbitrary restrictions like "furrytaurs can't be mecha pilots". If my fursona can have wrist-mounted chainguns, I won't let him be stopped by setting canon. And wouldn't it be loving crazy to live in a city built, run and owned by Starbucks? Or McDonald's? Kurieg posted:I've been avoiding most of the Metzen artwork because it's terrible. Everything in the classes update has been Samwise's work. Unfortunately at this time Metzen was still in charge of the art bible, which meant that most women didn't know what shirts were and the Night Elves were a race of amazon women. Metzen was also directly involved in the Alliance and Horde compendium and the Manual of Monsters so don't expect things to improve until later. Here's the Metzen art I've been skipping This whole Warcraft character style in general is a bit weird. It's a bit like if Rob Liefeld would make character designs for some kind of Saturday Morning Warhammer cartoon. Ony "a bit like" because Warcraft artists know how to draw spines and feet (or at least how to keep them consistent with the rest of the body's grotesque proportions). Anyhow, I've been lurking here for a while now before getting an account, and meandering about nerdy RPG stuff looks fun. Sooo, anyone interesting in Thrash, the spiritual homebrew successor to that Street Fighter Storyteller Game? Or while we're at d20 and sci-fi stuff, how about some Stars Without Number, the Traveller meets OD&D (or another old edition) game?
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# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 22:30 |
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2024 07:46 |
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I feel this setting missed a golden opportunity for some Pokemon ripoffs. Who needs animalistic sex slaves if you can make your own fire-breathing pet?PresidentBeard posted:Personally I think the swear filter enhances the humor of Purple's posts. I lovin' love swear filters. They just add a certain something. Mors Rattus posted:Second: In due time Doresh fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jan 10, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 23:22 |
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Well, at least they keep their 9/11 influence as a historical footnote. Could be worse, like exploding mutants.Evil Mastermind posted:God it drives me nuts when people make RPGs based on a video game property, and spend more effort in converting every video game mechanic into rules instead of focusing on silly things like "tone". Man, I would love me some Doom d20 with a Telefragger prestige class. Thous this Totally-Not-Fallout RPG is a bit too excessive. They crossed the point where it would've probably been better to just rip-off the game's RPG mechanics as well and replace the percentile resolution system with a d20. Mr. Maltose posted:It was perfectly serviceable except for Marche's unending desire to recripple his younger brother. How dare his brother live a normal life without his approval ! Covok posted:I'm just shocked how insane and anchro-captialist Furry EP's lore is. If you really want transhumanism furries, you'd think you'd just do something simple like "yeah, two factions of mankind got into a big war, they started making genetically-engineered, intelligent, living weapons as a new avenue of war, nuclear option happens, mankind dies out, anthros survived because the factories growing them survived." Boom!, done: your excuse plot is finished without being too insane or crazy. No need to limit your potential audience by taking extreme stances on politics. Not really sure either why some writers seem to fill their RPGs with insane ideological garbage. Guess they really want to stand out. Doresh fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Jan 11, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 10:43 |
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A ham-fisted Idiot Savant mutant could also be fun. Does that one even have a flaw if you never plan to have more than 6 INT in the first place?Bieeardo posted:Probably the same reason why it likes to sneak into some people's novels. If you're particularly amateurish and short anyone to proof or edit, it's easy to That would make sense. And RPGs have the added advantage of now being largely ignored by mainstream media (after that D&D scare, of course). Did stuff like RaHoWa even cause a blip on the radar outside the RPG circles? Doresh fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jan 11, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 12:35 |
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There goes my dream of roleplaying an owl fursona. This game is so specist (I might go for a hedgehog, but if Slenderowl exists, there is a possiblity that we will run into Sonic.exe too) It's a good thing the writer kept his priorities straight so we know too little about Venus, robots and technology, but do know enough about furry loving and the absurd speed at which their population grows. And can you even nuke a whole planet? Even if all this fantastic technology, that's a lot of mass to explode. Unless their 3D printers can print death stars, I guess. SpiritOfLenin posted:The gently caress is that blue thing in the last picture? A ginger dinosaur lady? LatwPIAT posted:To be fair, any piece of writing involving something political or historical will necessarily present a political bias in one way or another. If I were to write a moderate-position RPG where the anarchist communes all failed, and the libertarian tax-havens all sank and turned into Somalia, I'd be taking the political position that anarchism and libertarianism are bogus. Which, if you're a libertarian or anarchist, would be a position in extreme opposition. On the more moderate, when we talk of ideological garbage with a political bent, I could crack open the GURPS Basic Set and find the rule that says that torture actually works, and works better if you're brutal about it - and, if someone will lend me their copy, I can in turn crack open Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity and point to the rule that says that torture tends to produce false confessions. Eclipse Phase' superhappyfuntime collectivist anarchism, and HSD's utopian libertarianism just fall outside the norm. Instead of saying they have a "conservative bent" or a "liberal approach", we say they're filled with "ideological garbage", ignoring that the moderate position, too, is just ideological. Maybe it's just the combination of having a noticable bias that being to blue-eyed about it, solving the world's problems with deceptively simple solutions. Doresh fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Jan 11, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 15:53 |
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Kurieg posted:Though knowing this game the crystals would just convert the sun which would basically be the worst possible thing that could happen to all life in the solar system. All life that is not a fusion-powered crystal Slenderman-ripoff. I call this an improvement over a furry society based on monopoly money. SpiritOfLenin posted:I was thinking that maybe it's supposed to be a reptile, without having any actually reptilian features, but ignored the possibility because, you know, she doesn't look reptilian in any way. Maybe the artist who drew this isn't actually a furry. Think about it: She's mostly human, the two guys besides her are just dudes with futuristic hazmat gear (with cat ears), and the only fully-visible furries are far in the background and that rotten corpse. Fossilized Rappy posted:You say that now, but wait until we get into the Southwest Wasteland Guide (the Game Master's Guide). There's a class that has an ability named "Atom Akbar". (I presume the class also gets a +2 bonus for piloting planes - except when they want to land.) Doresh fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jan 11, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 16:42 |
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Which brings a RPG suffering from this into the same kind of territory as "that one acquaintance of yours who boasts about how he could single-handedly solve all our country's problems" And hooray for more TORG !
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# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 19:50 |
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Again, I must thank the writers of HSD for focusing on the really important parts of a setting, like "Just how do they keep their currency stable?". Who needs to know how people stopped being egocentric jerks, or how magical crystal technology (that is somehow in tune with the universe despite breaking every single law of it) works?
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# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 17:25 |
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I think that might just be an eagle or dove. The artist apparently paid too much attention to the mohawk to get the head shape even remotely right.
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# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 18:37 |
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And what's up with the eyes? There just white strokes, a shape that doesn't really make sense for any kind of bird. I think that cyber mohawk contains little robot arms for him to use.
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# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 19:38 |
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Dunno how interesting Warcraft Mass Combat is. Dind't they just copy the rules of Cry Havoc? And HSD seems to more than fill the furry bullshit quota, so onwards with mechanized bullshit and punching casters. And boy oh boy, there's a lot of stupid in the last stretch of HSD fluff... "Suck Suits"? There are writers who love coming up with cryptic, pretentious terms for nearly everything, and then there's this. Whatever it is. In a world where the big corporations are the government, there are no advertisments anywhere? I think we can add IT to the things the writers of HSD have no clue about. Building your entire economy on ancient hard- and software that is never updated is just asking for trouble. And what happens if you do end up breaking/losing your Ledger, or if your Ledger just goes bad? Are you banished or something? So human songs have an effect on the furries? Are they now ripping off Macross? Does anyone else finds it disturbing that the perfect capitalistic furry paradise future views large-scale manslaughter as "just another whacky monday evening"? Halloween Jack posted:I'm still surprised that there isn't more military sci-fi RPG stuff, especially in the wake of stuff like Halo and XCom. Colon V started (but never finished) doing 2nd edition Heavy Gear a couple years ago. That's about all I know so far. I might tackle some DP9 myself as I've gotten myself the main books of the whole SilCORE era, though I'm leaning towards CORE Command, as I'm a poor sod who doesn't own too many actually bad RPGs. Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 14, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 20:12 |
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I guess it's a matter of how much in love the writers are with their self-insertion / wish-fullfillment characters. And now I'm reminded of DC Online, we you're the errant boy for the actual heroes. Then again, having millions of super-powered dudes suddenly running around is actually a plot point, so I guess someone needs to manage this mess. (Not that it makes this any less lame.) Did anyone even test these creation rules? Like, at least once? Or did they just look at the numbers and went "Yeah, I'm sure we can just scale that to level 20" o_O ?
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# ¿ Jan 15, 2015 22:04 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:It's not so much that as "we have the whole metaplot hammered out years in advance, we can't risk PCs going off-script and solving things before they should be solved." And this is why I prefer sandboxes. They can make all the metaplot they want, but that won't stop me from ignoring it. Kavak posted:The weird thing is in games for well established properties like Star Wars and Star Trek, you don't get adventures where the Millenium Falcon or the Enterprise shows up to save the day. I think I can offer at least 2 valid explanations for this: 1. Both licenses have a setting that spans the whole galaxy. Having the Han Solo / Picard show up every time would be a bit weird (even if the movie Enterprise does end up being "the only ship within reach" or however it goes again). 2. Both licenses also have a very large, nerdy fanbase doing all sorts of fanfics and fan movies with whole crews of OCs. It was probably seen financially feasable to cater to them. AmiYumi posted:I refuse to hate any RPG that lets you take "Race: Bear", spend your first three levels as "Class: Larger Bear", and then dip right into "Prestige Class: Even Larger Bear". Ignoring the fact that its PrC entry requirements literally didn't work, RAW. Looks like things really improved with that edition
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2015 08:12 |
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And at least FASA's RPG featured random rolls for stats, which can never be improved. Having anywhere near as good stats as Kirck and the gang takes a bit of luck.Kai Tave posted:On the other hand the WEG Star Wars d6 game was notorious for taking the stance of "you and your shitkicking PC pals are nowhere near as cool as the canon characters from the movies." It took a while for people writing RPGs based on licensed settings that hey, maybe the folks playing these want to be on par with the main characters instead of Third Background Extra From the Left. Well, at least it forced the players to come up with creative ways to off Vader.
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2015 12:41 |
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Oh boy, the actual mechanics of HSD didn't take long to collapse in on itself. All this madness about how government was the root of all evil and everyone's a beautiful, furry snowflake all the corporations are bowing to, and now we're getting into species stereotypes and pack mentality never mentioned before? Dragons are apparently only for kewl NPCs or something. And now time for me to step into the ring myself. Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Ooh! There's a second arm growing out of my elbow! I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with Ewen Cluney, or at least his work. He's the creative mind behind Magical Burst (aka "Not Madoka Magica: The RPG") and the translator of Maid RPG (aka "Why does my fun and whacky harem RPG have creepy hentai stuff every couple pages?"). Pretty cool dude, all in all. His earliest success goes back all the way to around 1998 with Thrash, a spiritual successor to White Wolf's Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game (or SF:STG, as I will abbreviate it). It was one of the homebrew systems in the late 90's to early 00's, spawning several fansites and quite a lot of fan-made content. It also helds a special place in my cold heart for being my second RPG system and my first homebrew experience. Compared to Ewen's later output, Thrash has a lot of crunch, is a bit vague at times and a tad bit on the broken side. But we'll get to that later (seriously, the actual rules start at Chapter 6) So without much further ado, let me bow down to my personal homebrew hero by riffing his earliest smash hit. Hey, you gotta start somewhere. (I'll be doing Thrash 1.8 for this. There's a Thrash 2.0, but that one never went beyond Beta status, does not represent Thrash at the peak of its popularity, and is generally better thought out and not as riffable.) Chapter 1: Introduction quote:"Violent fighting to begin again..." I'm not sure if this can even count as a chapter as it's barely over a page long. It doesn't have a "What is a roleplaying game?" section you see in every commercial production, and the very first paragraph has some weird bits in it. quote:Capcom’s Street Fighter II changed the face of video games forever by introducing the world to a new style of game, where two characters faced off in a one-on-one fight to the finish. This has since spawned countless other similar games, to the point that it has created an entire genre of video games, collectively known as Fighting Games. So after claiming that SF2 invented the fighting game genre (I presume SF1 was a sim game or something), the text goes on to state that Thrash is a "book-and-dice" RPG about the kind of crazy martial arts as seen in anime and fighting games. This game only covers the core rules without any sort of setting, but it informs us that there will be sourcebooks converting popular fighting games - which is actually true. Nifty. quote:The Thrash system is heavily based on the now out-of-print Street Fighter Storytelling Game from White Wolf, as well as Mekton Z, and, to a lesser extent, Ninjas & Superspies. I don't know anything about Ninjas & Superspies, but the other two games make this sound very "promising". Sadly, it doesn't mean that we will be able to demolish our foes with an Infinite Burst Value Cartwheel Kick to the head location. It just means the game takes several elements from the Storytelling Game and bundles them with Interlock-ish resolution mechanics (Attribute + Skill + d10, to spoiler a bit). It also goes on to inform us that this game is about hyper-charged martial arts. Not that you would expect realistic depictions of martial arts styles if you can breathe fire and teleport all over the place. quote:Thrash is not intended to be a particularly complex or in-depth game. The object in roleplaying is to have fun, but in Thrash that may at times be the sole concern. furthermore, the rules are designed to play relatively quickly, since the game is intended to simulate extremely fast-paced martial arts combat. To play Thrash you will need only this book, some pencils and papers, and some dice (10-sided and 6-sided) Keep the "not particularly complex" and "relatively quickly" parts in mind. Also, the game uses plenty of d4s and even a d12 at one point, though no d8s, which is a bit odd IMO. There's a bit of historical background to Thrash, which apparently started as a homebrew sourcebook for SF:STG called "Warrior's World", which I can't for the live of me find anywhere anymore. quote:Design Theory of Thrash This might make it sound like some kind of freeform FATE-ish kind of deal, but you're actually still "picking items from a list in the book", but with customization options. It's essentially a semi-effects-based game, with specific maneuvers (aka moves) instead of general effects/powers. quote:Thrash is not a game for munchkins! Admittedly the rules are easy to abuse. At least he's honest about it So anyways, a short talk about how storytelling is more important than making broken characters, using a short rant about a Athena Asamiya conversion one guy did as an example. Okay... On to sourcebooks! At time of the PDF's first release, there were two "official" sourcebooks in the form of Karyu Densetsu (an original campaign setting, currently only available with archive.org-fu) and a generic Thrash Sourcebook. Planned future sourcebooks were to include Street Fighter (did happen), Ranma 1/2 (did sorta happen, there's a fan-made anime sourcebook with heavy Ranma tones), DarkStalkers (nope), King of Fighters (did happen, but again fan-made), Samurai Shodown (dito), Metal Rage (the Mekton Z crossover that never happened, though there is a fan-made mecha supplement) and Road Thrash (the combat racing sourcebook that also never happened. Man, I miss Road Rash ). Sure, there aren't nearly as many "official" sourcebooks as planned, but man, there's A LOT of unofficial stuff. After a version history, a now defunct homepage link, a couple thanks and a disclaimer, the first chapter ends! Took up a bit more space than expected o_O Oh well, next post then!
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2015 00:06 |
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Can I be a dragon bird-bird ?!ascendance posted:This is actually not an inaccurate claim. SF2 added the giant cast of characters which has since become a staple of the fighting game genre. In SF1, you had the choice of Ken and Ryu. True, but I would say that "The fighting game genre kinda sucked before SF2 showed them how it's done" is way more accurate than "There was nothing before SF2". NutritiousSnack posted:Was there ever a Mortal Kombat fan supplement or something because that seems like a weird blind spot. Not to my knowledge. Seems Thrash primarily attracted fans of animu fighters (or anime in general). I did try to start a MK supplement, but my juveline past self got to less than a page before giving up on figuring out all the martial arts styles and the more exotic moves. MK159 posted:As for Thrash 2.0, it streamlines a lot of things, but still bogs down to agonizingly slow in combat and has some hilarious balance issues. It is trivially easy to make a character who only ever relies on one or two stats to do everything and has bumped those stats to the detriment of the others with no real penalty. Meanwhile a balanced out generalist is completely terrible and gets nothing for versatility. Maybe that would have been ironed out if it ever got out of beta? I'd say things would've already looked much better if Thrash 2.0 didn't decide to go the SF:STG route of having you spend points on say "Kicks" and "Punches" separately, without actually penalizing you for ignoring one of them. This just amplified some of the problems presented in 1.8 (but I'm getting ahead of myself). I think this can be houseruled by just merging stuff together, though. Doresh fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Jan 17, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 17, 2015 10:02 |
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PurpleXVI posted:Well, may as well make an entire party, then. Scrooge McDuck, Master of Money, Luchadore Gecko, half a foot high but still able to wreck you with a folding chair, and Darkblood Ravenfeather Whytewolf xXxSephirothxXx, the Chosen One. How's that sound? Sounds splendid. Though I would personally lean towards young Scrooge McDuck from his glory days at Klondike. If anyone can "beat" Slenderowl Earth, it's him. Oh, and his pal Kenshigecko. And WTF is up with these Ledgers? The were already weird as background fluff, but now they're part of your stats?! Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Chapter 2: The Martial Arts quote:"Once there was a man who tried to make his skill ultimate. Because of that, it was no wonder he was involved in the troubles." This is a lot like that early chapter in SF:STG were the setting was drawn in broad strokes. Here, it's even broader because the game doesn't have a default setting. I'll just summarize it for you as it's not too interesting. Realism and Lack Thereof: The game is not an "accurate" simulation of fighting games, but is intended to be a bit more realistic, like an anime adaption of a fighting game. So no spamming Hadokens all day, or blocking guns and swords with your arm (except when you buy block maneuvers that do allow just that). The World: Just a reminder how most fighting games are set in the modern day (because you don't have to waste time on stuff like worldbuilding). Goals: Nobody here learns martial arts for self-defense or other lame things. It's all about revenge, cash and other cool stuff. Styles: Something about external/hard and internal/soft martial arts styles. Not that this has much of an effect in-game. Honor: The same stuff you read in SF:STG about how honor is super important for most martial artists. Think of fighting tournaments as being Ned Stark conventions. The Power of Chi: The main excuse for all those Hadokens and Sonic Booms. Like its predecessor, it separates chi into good/positive, and bad/negative chi. And unlike its predecessor, it actually has rules for having strong ties to either side of the chi. Tournaments: Tournaments make for an easy excuse to have people beat the crap out of each other, which is why most fighting games revolve around one. They can range from 1-on-1 battles, oldschool King of Fighers elimination matches, tag team matches or all-out brawls. Most tournaments tend to have a problem with weapons (especially firearms). Funny how they never have problems with people throwing energy blasts at each other, or covering their body in fire. There's also the typical stuff about illegal gambling, managers fans, prizes, and so on. Tournament Match Rules: Apart from reminding us that tournaments are generally dicks to normal people just trying to fend off the scary Hadoken-slingers and mutants with a stick, this little sections talks about the typical ways a match can end. Apart from the typical candidates of the time running out or one opponent getting knocked out, a figher can also just give up, which would make for a lulzy feature in an actual fighting game. Teams: This is a roleplaying game, so of course the characters will usually form a team. Women and the Martial Arts: Ugly chicks don't exist in the fighting game world. You're either doki doki kawaii desu ka, a hot waifu, or both. At least you're not required to run around like Mai. Retirement: Boring stuff about what fighters tend to do after their career, using Terry Bogart as an example - because it's not like he's still appearing in every bloody King of Fighters game. Weird Powers: Fighting games tend to include a lot of very strange poo-poo, like mutations, cybernetics and supernatural powers. All which is apparently more legal than using a bloody stick. For some reason, these things are only covered in an appendix at the end of the book, instead of being closer to the chargen chapter like everything else. And with that the book fluidly moves on to the next chapter - by which I mean that the formatting does not separate the right column into chapter 2 and 3. Nice. I will wait with making an example character till I covered the various styles available, which is Chapter 4. Suggestions are welcome, though I already have plans for a character exploiting the easiest trick in the book. Doresh fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jan 17, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 17, 2015 16:20 |
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This is like an even dumber version of the X-Men paradox, were being born with a genetic mutation that activates around puberty makes you a freakish sub-human that will never be accepted by society (at least not for long), but getting a genetic mutation from an outside source makes you a friendly neighbourhood hero. Heck, the latter is probably scarier. If it can happen to one random bloke, it can happen to anyone. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jan 17, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 17, 2015 18:26 |
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How in the name of CthulhuTech do you spend over half a dozen centuries without developing a culture or society? This happens pretty much automatically as soon as you're in a group. It's a bare minimum for regulated interaction (which is kinda required for a capitalistic utopia). The only way this would make any lick of sense is if everyone was living isolated from everyone else, which is obviously not the case here.Tasoth posted:Hot poo poo, are furries silly about those morphisms. Being a digitigrade would loving suck as a biped. Imagine walking in stiletto heels every moment of your life. I also question how being small for lateralism/microism doesn't directly affect the intelligence of the characters. Although, if laterlism meant you were a significantly larger, but atavistic, version of the furry family, that be loving neat. John 'Sticky' Rourke, PI solving crimes as a labrador sized gecko in hat and coat would be fun. Anyone remember Final Fantasy 12's race of bunny girls who literally all had to tie heels to their feet? They also always wore clothing that exposed their butt cheeks, because why not. And of course do you never see males.
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2015 23:01 |
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Man, now I imagine centaur babies getting some weird contraption around their head to keep it stable. And the viera design is even sillier than I remember. As if anyone would give hot bunny waifus legs reserved for stereotypical beastmen Kai Tave posted:Ironically, it's just as plausible that this particular bit of inanity has nothing to do with libertarianism, bigotry, or furry persecution fantasies and could very well simply be due to the author going down the checklist of hoary old RPG tropes and ticking them off as he went. "Half-races? Persecuted and shunned, check." Like the "Vampire stories always need werewolves, and they never get along with the vampires"-craze? Why do writers never question stuff before including it in their story? Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Chapter 3: Character Creation Sadly doesn't come with a weird quote. There were a couple throughout the last chapter, but that would've been overkill. Anyhow, Thrash is one of those games that presents you the entire character creation process before you even know how to do anything. Oh well, let's roll with it! And roll we shall, because the points you spend on the game's 8 attributes amount to 6d10+20. Randomized point-buy - everyone's favorite ! The 8 attributes range from 1-10 like in Interlock (though you can raise the maximum later) and are as follows: Intelligence, Focus, Charisma, Will, Strength, Agility, Stamina and Appearance. They mostly explain themselves, apart from Focus, which is your mental strength. A somewhat strange order for a game centered mostly around physical combat to be honest. And if you're wondering if Agility is just as much of a god stat as Reflexes is in Mekton Z: almost, since you don't have a giant robot to take and dish out the hurt for you. Unspent attribute points are converted into Character Points, which you use to buy everything else (so why just not use Character Points for both?). There are also optional rules for "Heroic Attributes" for more powerful starting characters, which is just a fancy name for "just give them a fixed amount of attribute points". When you're done with your attributes, it's onwards to your Secondary Stats (shouldn't that be "Secondary Attributes" ?): Base Action Points (APs): Acts as your initiative and is spend to do stuff, which kinda reminds me of FASA's Star Trek RPG. The base formular is [8 + your ranks in whatever styles you have]. Chi: Used for all kinds of supernatural moves. Equals [Focus x 2 + Will] Health: The big bar floating over your head during fights. Starts out at [Stamina x 4]. Dizzying Threshold: How long people have to punch you before you might get dizzy/stunned. [Stamina + 8]. Rage Threshold: Unlike SF:STG, Thrash has super moves! It models this by borrowing from the first two or so Samurai Shodown games where you would get enraged as the bar filled up. This threshold is therefore calculated as [Stamina + Will + Focus], meaning that raising these three attributes actually makes it take longer to pull off super moves, as you are less likely to hulk out. Makes sense I guess, but still weird. Thankfully, there's a little something coming later which allows us to ignore this stat alltogether! Basic Damage: Your damage bonus you add to all your maneuvers. You have one based on Strength (physical attacks) and Focus (chi attacks). It is determined by one of my favorite charts of all time: Quite the indirect way of saying "Attribute - 4", isn't it ? As an optional rule, we can further divide the physical Basic Damage into Upper/Lower Body Strength. It's a way to increase your Basic Damage for kicks or punches by decreasing your Basic Damage for the other one, turning you either into Popeye/a gorilla or a dude with elephant feet. They can thankfully not be more than 4 points apart, but there's still no reason to not go all out. It's not like there's much of a drawback in specializing in one kind of attack while ignoring the other. Onwards to Character Points (CPs)*! You start with [Intelligence + Agility + 40], because we can't have anyone get the same amount of points! You can spend these CPs on Skills, Disciplines (Feats you can raise like skills), Styles (the closest thing to a race/class, also raised like skills), Maneuvers (your moveset), as well as Advantages & Disadvantages. Unspent CPs are converted into experience points, though that's not a good deal as this is one of those point-buy games where just about everything's cheaper during character generation. As yet another optional bunch of optional rules, you can spend CPs to boost your starting APs, Chi, Heatlh and Dizzy Threshold, which sounds rather tempting for the former and latter, as those can't actually be raised directly later on. You can also customize skills with Specialisations and Concentrations. Specialisations are your normal "You're better when doing X" deal, while Concentrations mean "You're way better when doing X, but suck everywhere else". You can also leave a couple CPs unspent to later pull of that shounen action shtick of "drat, I didn't want to use IT so soon..." that is totally not a sign of hack writing. This does however cost additional CP to do, so it's not too effective. After a character generation example, we get a paragraph on converting video game characters. It basically boils down to "It's just an interpretation, so don't get too obsessed about finding out Ryu's exact lifting capacity" and "Don't worry about point costs because normal starting characters are supposed to suck compared to the big guys, anyways". Next are skills, a rather long list with the usual suspects like Cooking and Intimidation, with a few notable ones:
I find it a bit odd that the Chi and Vital Points Disciplines aren't "Weird Powers". I'm also a bit sceptical on those Disciplines that give you exclusive Chi-powered bonuses to your rolls. Reminds me of D&D casters going nova during the first battle of the day and then deciding to rest. Lastly, we have Advantages and Disadvantages, some of which have mutliple levels. Most is the usual stuff of "You're stinkin' rich", "You know some people that might help you", "You have better sense than most" and "You have an easy excuse to beat people up". I'll just list the most notable ones:
Next time, we'll be looking at the actual styles. Then we can almost make a character! *) For some reason, Action and Character Points are the only thing in the entire book to get abbreviations.
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# ¿ Jan 18, 2015 10:32 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Asimo posted:Off-brand not-Vault Boy continues to be absolutely and unintentionally hilarious. Crasical posted:So if you wanted to play a Fallout RPG, would you actually want to paint the identifying marks back on and use Exodus? Or is it just not very good even if it was a licensed product? Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Chapter 4: Styles quote:“The way of Koukugenryu Karate is invincible! Real tough! Just like SF:STG, creating a character involves picking a style. Unlike SF:STG, you can have multiple styles if you want, like Gen from Street Fighter! Styles in Thrash are not something you just pick once and be done with it. Like Disciplines and some Advantages, Styles come in levels, which directly affect your Accuracy (basically your skill used for attack and defense) and Action Points. A bit like a D&D class in that regard. Styles are also a bit like a D&D race in that you get a small Attribute bonus and a couple more or less severe benefits and flaws, usually cost modifiers along the line of "X Maneuvers cost Y CP more/less". You also get a small selection of starting maneuvers to go with, in addition to the basic maneuvers everyone has. Not all Styles are born equal. Because of this, some Styles are considered Discipline Styles. They're the dirty peasants among the Styles who are barely allowed to hang out with the others, usually having their flaws outweight their benefits or just being plain worse than other Styles. Buying and raising them however is just as cheap as a Discipline (hence the name), allowing for cheap Accuracy boosting. Unfortunately, they increase Action Points much slower than proper Styles (+1 every 2 levels, instead +1 per level), ultimately leaving their user in the dust when it comes to speed. Having multiple Styles requires nothing fancy, just buy more than one and you're good to go. Every maneuver you buy has to be tied to one of your styles, and it will only ever use that Style's Accuracy and be affected by its cost modifiers. Keeping every Style's Accuracy high is very pricey, but every Style still raises your universal pool of Action Points, making this a no-brainer at high level. In case you don't want to have to raise multiple Styles, you can slam two Styles together and have yourself a Hybrid Style, taking everything from both Styles (or the best in case of overlap). Doesn't give you twice the Action Points though, and it's more expensive to raise your level aka Accuracy (though not as expensive has having seperate Styles). There's also no reduction in cost if one or both Styles are Discipline Styles, so forget about including those. I guess this as good as anytime to give a short summary on the various maneuver categories (the book takes its time with that):
Now on to the Styles themselves. They all have a quote from a "typical" practitioner, but there's really only one that's any interesting.
The chapter then ends with telling us how Appendix 3 has guideline for style creation, and how you can make your boss characters cheesier by giving them broken Styles. Yay ! Now I just have to slog through the maneuvers chapter before we actually learn how to play the game. Though I suppose I can already start making a character. If you can't convince me otherwise, I'm going for a Scottish girl (because why settle on "racial stereotype" or "otaku magnet" if you can have both?) using the ancient art of "Fist of the Highlands" (aka "I'll be using the Generic Style out of spite") to see how much I can break the system. Doresh fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jan 20, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 20:25 |
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Halloween Jack posted:There's an easy house rule for multiple styles in Street Fighter: Style is a Background that everyone gets 5 free points in; you can have multiple styles, but can't learn maneuvers that cost more than your level in style. I would say this comes down to what maneuver combinations are now possible. And how does this houserule determing your starting Chi and Willpower? biosterous posted:Two Aikidos? That was a failure on my part. The second one is supposed to be Bojutsu. Fixed >_< !
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 16:30 |
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Man, dandypunk sounds rad. And this whole situation gotta mess with German public opinion. We don't have much love for our military, though having to deal with daily attacks of demons and cyborgs would probably change that a little. Halloween Jack posted:Eh, you would just pick a "Primary" style. Oh well, White Wolf has already balance problems with stuff that is rules legal. It's a small wonder this can happen if you make house rules. Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Interlude: Here Comes A New Challenger! So imagine you're in the design team of a long-running fighting game franchise, working on the newest entry. You've already borrowed from your rivals in the past, and people are starting to get tired of your archaic practice of re-releasing the same game every couple months with a more ridiculous name and tweaks/content that normal people would just sell as DLC. You've decided to aim for nostalgia bait by designing a new character the "classic" way (aka "he's a very stereotypical bloke from some random country"), with him being a Scotsman being an obvious choice as they basically design themselves (just give him a kilt and a funny dialect). Sadly, the fighting game genre ain't as big as it used to be, so to make sure that sales are alright, you decide to make it a young lady to attract the otaku crowd. This is the result: Sherry McTappington After some martial artists decided to have some fun by smashing up every last barrel of her father's whisky distillery - leaving the poor guy shocked through his core in a way he has yet to fully recover from -, then 16-year old Sherry abruptly ditched school and returned to her family's home, located near Loch Lomond in the Scottish Highlands. As her father's only child, it was up to her to continue her clan's age old tradition of cold-blooded revenge. She spent the next 2 years learning the ancient arts of "Fist of the Highlands" from the village elder. It's essentially boxing, but much more potent since training involves lifting logs, throwing logs, catching logs and punching logs, combined with a strict diet of haggis and porridge. With her training complete, she decided to leave her home, joining tournament after tournament in search for the barrel breakers. Little did she know that she will eventually face a nefarious organization that is somehow trying to conquer the world in a way that requires holding martial arts tournaments across the globe... Looks: She has long, braided reddish-brown hair and essentially wears a fetishized mixture between a British school uniform and traditional bagpipe player getup. Her fists are rarely not raised during combat (except when she punches, of course). And of course, she wears very thick glasses for some meganekko bonus. Personality: She is actually quite cheerful, but has no warmth to give to her opponents, who she tries to demoralize with colorful Scottish taunts. She likes cooking and playing musical instruments, but Scotish traditions for either one don't find much love outside of her homeland... Quote: "Ye shoold've eaten mair haggis!" To start out character creation, We have to first roll to see how many attribute points we get. The 6d10 come out as... 31, which is a tiny bit below average. Oh well, a total of 51 has to suffice. I distribute those as follows: Intelligence 6, Focus 4, Charisma 4, Will 6, Strength 8, Agility 10, Stamina 8, Appearance 6 (The free +1 gained from the Generic Style went into Will, since I don't feel like min-maxing too hard yet) She is below average in terms of intelligence, looks and willpower, a bit below average in terms of social aspects (she's a bit peculiar), maxed out Agility (because Mekton Z teaches us to do so) and generally very high physical stats because Scots are tough as nails. We don't plan on doing anything fancy in terms of optional stuff, apart from maxing out her Upper Body Strength by lowering her kicking power (which we won't use, anyways). With the above stats, we have 56 Character Points (CPs) to play with. Wanting to emphasize her punching power, getting 3 levels of Iron Fist for that +1 damage sounds like a good deal. We also get 4 levels of Body Hardening because Scots are tough. We can't forget to put points in her Style. 4 ranks sound about good for a start, giving us a +4 on all maneuver rolls and a total of 14 Action Points. Sherry's advantages & disadvantages are rather straightforward:
We then spend a couple points on the skills First Aid, Intimidation, Lore (Scotland), Survival, Swimming and Taunt, and get the language skill for her native tongue for free at level 3. No Cooking or Musical instrument (bagpipes) here to reinforce the stereotypical joke. With that out of the way, her character sheet looks like this: Sherry McTappington Attributes: Intelligence 6, Focus 4, Charisma 4, Will 5, Strength 8 (10/6), Agility 10, Stamina 8, Appearance 6 Base APs: 12 Chi: 13 Health: 32 Dizzy Threshold: 16 Rage Threshold: 17 Base Damage: Strength: +4 (+6/+2) Focus: +0 Skills: First Aid 1, Intimidation 3, Language (Scottish) 3, Lore (Scotland) 3, Survival 3, Swimming 2, Taunt 4 Advantages & Disadvantages: Area Specialisation (Punch), Delusion (minor, "Scootlund is th' best!"), No Kick Training, Pacifism (no killing) Disciplines: Body Hardening 4, Iron Fist 3 Styles: Fist of the Highlands (Generic Style) 4 (This is the official character sheet formatting, and it could really use some more abbreviations) But our future munchkin is far from finished! We still have 28 CPs to spend on maneuvers, so join me next time when we tackle the maneuvers chapter and get our first glimpse at breaking the system! (Hint: The secret is hidden in her name )
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# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 20:09 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Big time. Germany went from reunification to being the #1 defense against the Cyberpapacy. It becomes a significant economic power (since half of Europe is out of the picture) and a staging ground for Storm Knight operations. The economic and staging ground parts are rather accurate predictions, if you replace the cyborgs with terrorists and remove the whole conflict the the Middle East o_O Crasical posted:...Cherry Tapping? Baofu posted:If Thrash is supposed to be modelled on 90s fighting games, I'm thinking it's more about exploiting the hell out of standing Jab. Well, basically both. I salute you unseenlibrarian posted:The other alternative for nineties fighting games: "Constant squatting low kicks" Sadly not really. Kicks are a bit Action-Points-intensive, though you could do that with the Slide Kick (the fastest kicks that knocks down). Robindaybird posted:or if it's the MK game for the 64 'throw EVERYONE then get your rear end kicked by Montaro because he can't be tossed' (I was fairly young and not good at fighting games) At this still works in modern fighting games. I just beat KoF13's final boss that way yesterday. That's what you get for spamming projectiles like a Budokai Tenkaichi character. Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Chapter 5: Maneuvers quote:"You'll have to defeat my Dragon Punch to stand a chance!" This chapter starts of by saying that "maneuvers" encompass anything used to hurt your opponent. Apart from the occasional skill, maneuvers are in fact the only actions you can do in combat. In order to get a maneuver, you have to purchase it with CPs, with the maneuver's cost modified by your styles and other factors, as well as the various modifiers you can slap on it for customization purposes. You can then add in some visual effects to the move and give it a unique name, similar to designing a power in most super hero / universal RPGs. There's also a paragraph on naming your maneuvers, with the most common choices being of course something in English or Japanese, with the latter mentioning how Japanese special moves tend to sound a bit weird in English (Hadoken = Wave Motion Punch). There's also a very handy Japanese-to-English chart with which you can make your own (more or less grammatically correct) Japanese maneuver names! Modifiers These are the various benefits and drawbacks you can add to your maneuver to tinker it as much as you want. They generally modify basic stuff like damage and the Action Points cost. Some positive modifiers are not entirely drawback-free, as some of them do things like increase the AP cost or increase the Chi cost (in most cases adding a Chi cost to an originally normal maneuver). Some modifiers come with Prerequisites, which range from laughably low to pretty hefty. Once you own a maneuver, you can buy others based on the same vanilla maneuver at a reduced price. You just have to pay 2 CP before any modifiers, or 1 CP if that's the maneuver's base cost. You can also create maneuvers based on your basic maneuver, in which case you just pay the price for the modifiers. The list is as follows (CP cost modifier in paranthesis):
Air Charge (+2): The move can be used in mid-air by creating a temporary energy platform (think Dante's double jump from Devil May Cry). Not entirely sure if this feature is worth +4 Chi cost. Chi Charge (+6): Gives your maneuver a chi boost for -3 AP cost, +2 damage and an absurd +4 to your Accuracy. Does however add a +4 Chi cost. Dashing Move (+5): Perform the maneuver while running. -3 AP cost and a Move of 6 (or +3 if that would be higher). Very handy for a noticable reach and speed improvement. Has an odd prerequisite of Agility 5. Why would you ever want less than that? Enraged Use (-2): The maneuver can only be used while your Rage Threshold is reached (but doesn't consume it like a super). If you have lots of levels in the Calm advantage, you can easily create a maneuver you will never be able to use with this. Extended Duration (+2): Can maintain a maneuver through multiple rounds, normally applied to Focus manuvers. Think of a continuous energy beam or something, or some kind of status effect. Not entirely sure if damage-dealing maneuvers need to hit every turn or are considered to always hit after the first. Extended Range (+1): Doubles the range of projectile attacks, which sounds like a very good deal. Extra Force (+1): +2 and causes Knockdown (essentially forcing the opponent to stay defensive for the rest of the turn). Could be pretty cheesy, but the +1 Chi cost at least means you'll eventually run out of uses. Flash Strike (+6): You attack with blinding speed. +1 Accuracy, and the AP cost is halved (which raises unanswered question or whether you apply this before or after adding other AP modifiers). Has the absurd prerequisite of Agility 10 and Focus 8, blocking this modifier from a lot of character concepts. Grabbing Maneuver (+1): You grab your opponent first before attacking, making it a bit harder to defend against. Increased Chi Cost (-1 per +2 Chi cost)[/u]: Exactly what it says. Increased Speed (+3): -3 AP cost. You'll love this one. Lunging Strike (+3): +1 Move, +2 Damage, +3 AP cost. Doesn't really sound too sexy, though it does add Move to maneuvers that originally didn't have any. Multiple Strike (+5/+6): This turns your normal maneuver into a multi-hit maneuver, with each hit costing 1/3 of the original AP. As the damage is always 1d4 per hit regardless of what the original maneuver did, this is only really useful for maneuvers that aren't too slow to begin with, but aren't too fast either (where it would probably be better to just spam the normal move). Move is determined by which version of the modifier you get (either None or 1 per 3 hits), essentially only leaving the maneuver's Accuracy, CP and Chi cost. Weird. Power Boosting (+2): A bit like one of these EX moves that every fighting game seems to have nowadays. With each use of the maneuver, you can decide to increase the damage by spending Chi. Spending lots of Chi however increases the AP cost. Power Strike (+2): Adds an elemental visual effect to your maneuver (hey, I thought that was just descriptive!). +3 Damage, +1 AP, +2 Chi. Preparation Time (-1/-2/-3): You need to spend additional time to turn the maneuver on. The -1 points version is 10 APs, whereas the -3 version forces you to do nothing for 2 turns. So not worth it. Prepared Strike (+1/+2+/3): You basically aim your maneuver, gaining +1 Accuracy and Damage for every turn you waited. I don't think this is very useful. You could've probably already hit the opponent multiple times during that time. Reduced Chi Cost (+2 per -1 Chi cost): Reduces the Chi cost, but can't bring it to 0. Reduced Force (-2): -3 damage. Can probably be used for cheesy purposes if you abuse the "Every hit always deals 1 damage minimum" rule, though there are easier ways. Reduced Speed (-2): +3 AP. Rather hefty for fast maneuvers. Risting Strike (+3): Makes the move an Aerial maneuver, and allows you to counter other Aerial maneuvers (you basically defend by attacking, with the winner hitting). Also +3 Damage. Stunning Strike (+1): +3 Damage, but the whole maneuver only deals stun damage (which is tracked separately and causes a KO if your combined normal and stun damage would surpass your Health). Combo Maneuvers Who doesn't like pulling off combos in fighting games? If you do, here are three ways to represent them in Thrash: Combo Maneuver: A predefined combo you have to buy with CP (the cost being the number of maneuvers -1) that is treated like a single maneuver in its own right, which does allow you to apply modifiers to the combo as a whole, though the book never goes into detail how this affects the individual maneuvers in the combo. Does something like Power Strike affect every single one? Just the first? Or the last? Anyways, the main reason to buy such a combo is to reduce the AP cost (which is 80% of the total of all maneuver involved) and to make it harder for the opponent to defend. If the first maneuver hits, he suffers a -5 penalty on all attempts to defend against the rest. Has a limit to it in that the maneuvers inside it can't surpass [number of maneuvers x 7] in total AP. Spontaneous Combo: This is a combo you just pull off on the fly, including up to your Agility in maneuvers. You don't get the AP cost reduction of a Combo Maneuver, but you do get the nice -5 defense penalty. The drawback of this whole deal is that you have to declare all the maneuvers in advance, though you can abort if the first strike is a miss (though that costs AP, too). Simultaneous Combo Maneuvers: You pull of 2 to 3 maneuvers at once. You take the highest AP cost and damage, increase the first based on the numbeer of maneuvers and add your usual damage bonuses (aka Strength) from the other maneuvers. You can probably pull of something silly with low AP maneuvers, but this won't be necessary to break the system. Team Attacks Just some rules about how to cross the Chi streams and how you can make a combo consisting of maneuvers from multiple characters. Maneuver Descriptions Now onto the real meat of the chapter! As already seen above, all maneuver cost AP to perform, and may or may not also eat up Chi. They have Accuracy which is added to your combat roll, and deal Damage (usually 1dx + whatever, which is further modified by your Damage Bonus and other modifiers). Maneuvers also have Move, which determines how many hexes you can go while using the maneuver (so I guess you can make hit-and-run tactics?). If your opponent is still out of reach, you can combine the maneuver with a movement-related maneuver like the aptly-named Movemnt. There are however some limitations in place: You can't move farther than your Agility in a turn, and maneuvers that have their Move written out (like "One" or "None") give you just that and nothing more. Basic Maneuvers These are maneuvers that everyone knows from the start. You get your typical setup of Light/Heavy Punch/Kick (used by pretty much everyone except Capcom and whoever's responsible for developing Skullgirl this week). This might just be a good opportunity to showcase the typical maneuver formatting in the book: Looking at Heavy Punch, you might be wondering why having worse Accuracy, Move and taking more than 3 times as much time compared to Light Punch is worth an average of +1 damage. Let's just say that the book kinda underestimates the usefulness of low AP maneuvers. You can also Grab, which doesn't deal damage on its own, but is rather used to start a combo, as grapples are a bit harder to defend against (we'll get to that in a moment). For movement, you have Dash (aka running around) and Movement, which is less of an independent maneuver and more of a spontaneous modifier (+1 AP per +1 Move). Defending also requires the usage of a maneuver. Everyone starts out with Dodge (avoids an attack entirely) and Parry (reduces the damage by the result of your parry roll, with a minimum of 1 damage). Basic Weapon Maneuvers These are basic maneuvers you can only use with a weapon. You have your typical weapon fighting game setup of Light/Medium/Heavy Strike, with a defensive maneuver called Block. I really think Parry and Block should swap their names. Makes more sense IMO. Strangely, the Strike maneuvers don't have a damage dice, but instead just -3/+0/+2. We'll get to that when weapons are actually covered. Now onto the maneuvers you can actually buy! I'll just give you a highlight reel, seeing how this post is already pretty long without commenting on every variation of "kick stuff". Athletics These all involve jumping around and/or doing crazy acrobatics tricks. They are easily the maneuvers with the highest Move, whichs requires high Agility to really take advantage of.
Block Basically give you different versions of Parry (which really should've been called "Block") with added utility, like being able to Parry projectiles and weapons (which Parry already can do, though the result of the parry roll is halved). Most of these are a bit pointless. If you have high Agility and get some Increased Speed onto your Dodge, you can probably ignore most of these maneuvers altogether. Blocks generally have high Accuracy, but you will always take at least 1 point of damage.
Evasion Only 3 maneuvers here, all about avoiding stuff.
Focus The crazy supernatural stuff. Pretty much anything here costs Chi, so don't rely too much on it.
Grappling Grappling maneuvers are a bit special in that blocks do nothing here. You have to perform a special action that costs 2 APs and has +0 Accuracy (much lower than your typical block). Apart from that, there isn't really anything special here. Just a bunch of maneuvers with high AP and low Move, as well as two defensive maneuvers (one to counter throws, one to get out of a sustained hold). Kick Hurting foes with your legs! Also nothing too notable here. Kicks are generally slower and less accurate than punches. Multi-Kick: Chun-Li's signature move. A bit like the Multiple Strike modifier, but you don't add your Strength to any of the kicks. This makes this maneuver very, very pointless, as you could just make a combo of normal kicks. Punch Now here are some interesting things:
Weapons Unlike the basic weapon maneuvers, these actually have damage dice. It's like you totally suck at using weapons unless you get yourself a maneuver.
Super Attacks The big ones, only usable if you hulk out.
Yeah, apart from Chi Star, Super Attack Combo and especially Rage Burn, this is quite a mixed bag of super moves to be honest. You'd think Mega-Attack would have something to reflect the invincibility frames and large hitboxes you tend to get in fighting games. Sooo, now on to finalizing your example character! Here Comes A New Challenger - Again! When we last left our Scottish heroine, we had 28 CPs left to spend on maneuvers, as well as the 7 CPs we get from the Generic Style, which we'll spend first. I'm not sure if you can spend these 7 CPs only on vanilla maneuvers, but every other style is doing just that. I'll stick with that to be on the safe side. We'll spend the 7 CPs on Head Butt (Scots are tough), Knuckle Fist (just to have a little maneuver variation example) and Uppercut (a Knockdown maneuver for 5 APs sounds nice). We also note down the Iron Fist maneuver we got for free as part of the Discipline of the same name. Before we go into modifying stuff, we'll buy a couple vanilla maneuvers, namely Jump (because everyone has it), as well as Kippup (because ignoring Knockdown sounds awesome) and Circular Parry (as it's nice to have). These thre cost us 7 CP, leaving us with 21 CPs. For Sherry's bread-and-butter move, I have devised the Quickening Knuckle, a running Knuckle Fist to the face. We take the Knuckle Fist manuver we already know (so we pay 2 CP instead of the normal 3 CP for that maneuver) and add the Dashing Move modifier (which costs +5 CP) for a total of 7 CP. This changes the move like this: Quickening Knuckle Accuracy: +2 Action Points: 2 Chi Cost: None Damage: 2d4 Move: 6 Note that Sherry's Area Specialisation (Punch) changes this further to Accuracy +3 and AP 1. This is also true for using the maneuver inside a combo (combos specifically mention that each hit is handled individually, and you can make combos using maneuvers from all kinds of categories). With an Agility of 10, we can create a Spontaneous Combo of 10 Quickening Knuckles, each dealing 2d4 + 6 (our Damage Bonus) + 1 (from Iron Fist), which is very hard to avoid - especially if we pull this off after say using Displacement (for a total of Accuracy +6). Suffice to say this is ridiculously fast, seeing how most maneuvers are at around 5 to 8 AP. Damage ain't to shabby either as even the hardest-hitting maneuvers only have like 1d10 + bonuses. The only maneuver with a noticably higher base damage is the Chi Star with 1d10+12. Speaking of Displacement, that's exactly what we're going to buy next, costing 3 CP. For an additional +3 CP, we add Increased Speed to it, bringing the AP cost down from 4 to 1, allowing us to spam this all day long. We call this creation the Lightning Step. The remaining 8 CP all go into Sherry's only super move: Gaelic Rage. It's the already amazing Rage Burn (4 CP) with 2 levels of the Decreased Chi Cost modifier (+ 4 CP), reducing the Chi cost from 10 to 8. Not terribly useful right now as Sherry has only 13 Chi and nothing else to spend it on (so she can only pull this move off once per fight either way), but it will surely come in handy once we boost her Chi. With this long chapter over, we'll finally learn the actual rules in the next chapter! Then we will find out whether all this dry theory is as gloriously cheesy and broken as planned! (I'll probably pick one of the generic NPCs at the end of the book for a test fight. I could look for a writeup of an actual fighting game character, but those tend to be a bit too experienced, aka they have very high style levels. Maybe I'll do both to see how broken Sherry is). Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jan 23, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 21:49 |
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Did anyone take a look at the character sheet of Mark ReinU+2022Hagen? I think he might be a troll, or at least a half-troll.bathroomrage posted:Congratulations, you've made Scottish Yun(minus divekicks)! Scottish Terry works, too. And you see, the introduction warned us that the rules are easy to abuse, so everything is going according to plan ! Simian_Prime posted:You could make a cases for spiders just representing phobias/irrational fears in general, considering how many people are batshit terrified of them. Except for jumping spiders. They're just adorable Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Chapter 6: Rules quote:"All things will die and everything will be broken; that is the law of the samurai." After being more than halfway through the book, we're finally getting into how to actually play the game! Keep in mind how the introduction told us that the rules are supposedly designed to "play relatively quickly" and be "not particularly complex". The rules start with a short paragraph on the "Rule Zero", or "If a rule annoy you, ignore it", as the writer quotes from the Project A-ko RPG (wow, that's a thing?). Common sense, basically. Success Tests The resolution system is Interlock. 1d10 + Attribute + Skill plus whatever. It even has the typical Interlock target numbers increasing in increments of 5, though a TN of 25 is strangely skipped. Ties are generally considered a stalemate, unless you really need a winner, in which case both sides roll an unmodified 1d10, with the highest one winning. There's also "Contested Difficulty", meaning that in some cases, one side of the contest might have an advantage, forcing the other side to win the roll by a certain margin to win. It's just a more complicated way of saying "Side A has an advantage, so side B suffers a -2 to their roll". The example used for this is about a 500 pound wrestler pinning a 120 pound karate dude, with the weight difference making it harder for the karate dude to escape. This is the only time weight has any factor anywhere (unless you're using this weight reduction Focus maneuver). Combat (cue Guile's Theme!) Combat starts out as your typical affair, with everything being separated into turns that last "a few seconds". A bit weird how we have such a vague reference if anything in combat cost Action Points, but whatever. Moving on. Initiative is based on your Base Action Points. At the beginning of every turn, you roll 1d10 and add the result to your Base APs. This tells you how many APs you can spend that turn, as well as your initiative order. Note that the order is always based on your current APs, so initiative can go back and forth several times per turn. You can perform a maneuver that requires more AP than you currently have, but the difference will carry over to the next turn. This really reminds me of that FASA Star Trek RPG, or other clunky RPGs from the same era. An action-points-based combat system might work for the old Fallout and X-COM games, but those use a computer to deal with all the clunky parts. The general nature of "initiative by current APs" also makes Combos very attractive, as they count as a single maneuver, allowing you to perform the whole combo even if the individual maneuvers would make you lose initiative around halfway through. Though should the opponent survive this onslaught, he might just have a big AP advantage. There's also a certain problem arising from the "APs as initiative"-nature of the rules. Certain Disciplines/Advantages/whathaveyou modify "Initiative", almost as if it was its own thing. I would assume this affects your APs, but then you have the Intimidation skill that can give your opponent a -4 on initiative and cut their APs in half. I guess initiative modifiers only apply to that AP roll at the start of the turn, but it's still weird O_o Actions Battles are fought on a hexgrid (with 1 grid = around 3 feet or 1 meter), with the grand majority of attacks only being able to hit stuff on the same hex. So if you want to use miniatures, better make sure the grids are big. As noted in the last chapter, you can't generally cover more hexes per turn than your Agility. Any character with Agility 1 might as well be an immobile statue. Attacking and defending is handled similar to a skill roll, except the "skill" in question is "your maneuver's Style + Accuracy", and ties actually go to the attacker. Block maneuvers generally always "fail", as their roll is just there to find out by how much you reduce the incoming damage (dammit, I might've misrepresented this last chapter. Foiled again <_<). So unless your Style + Agility is noticably lower than your opponent's it's usually better to try to evade, as that prevents damage entirely. As defensive actions are also maneuvers that eat up AP, being spammed by 1 AP attacks makes it very likely for you to never gain initiative unless you give up and let yourself get hit a couple times. Speaking of getting hit, should the attacker succeeds, he rolls the damage for his maneuver, adds his damage bonuses (cue a repeat of that funny Basic Damage chart that amounts to "Attribute - 4"), and then the defender makes a Soak Roll to see how much damage he actually takes. The Soak Roll amounts to 1d10 + Stamina (plus other factors like Body Hardening or armor). You then divide the total by 4, round down and reduce incoming damage by that amount. I don't know how you feel, but "random damage reduction involving divisions and rounding" does not strike me particularly suitable for a "realtively quick" anime-ish fighting game combat system. You can probably speed up combat big time by just taking the average roll and write down the final result on your sheet. There are rules for aborting a maneuver (saving half the APs in the process), but I'm not sure when this would ever come up, unless your opponent defends with something really scary or something. You also have Berzerker Attacks and Desperate Defense, your typical All-Out Attack / Total Defense. Berzerker Attacks are a bit special in that you need to have reached your Rage Threshold, wish will be explained shortly. Stunning (or "Dizzying", as it is called here) is a thing in just about every fighting game, so it of course is featured here (though Hit Stun is strangely absent). Whenever you take more damage in a single turn than your Dizzying Threshold, you have to make a Stamina Roll against a Target Number of 20, with a failure making you unable to do anything the following turn (where you may or may not get light punched to death). Note how this only happens on the following turn. Apparently, if you take lots of damage early on in the turn, you don't notice it until the turn is over. The Mekton Z influence can be felt when we reach rules for facing, complete with AP costs for turning and accuracy penalties for attacking stuff behind you. I think I will just ignore this one. You can also try to fake a maneuver, baiting your opponent into wasting APs for defense. Failing this however gives you a heavy defense penalty for the counter attack, so I don't think this is really worth it, especially if ou can just have the opponent spend those APs by actually attacking. Rage Whenver you're hit, the total damage (before any reduction like soak) is added to your pool of Rage Points. Once you reach your Rage Threshold, you hulk out, with several effects: You can use super maneuvers, though pulling off even one has your Rage drop back to 0. While raging, your non-supers become stronger (+2 Damage), and you also speed up (+3 AP). You can keep this state going for as long as you want, but after a number of turns equal to your Focus, you start losing 2 Rage Points per turn, until they reach 0. Not that this is much of a problem unless you avoid getting hit even once after that. You don't even have to get hurt all that much in the process. Just block like once to keep the rage flowing. There are some roleplaying hints about how Rage can affect your character, also going into how story events can have you gain or lose Rage. Think about how Goku went nuts when Krillin was killed by Freeza, or how calming it is to see a bunch of kittens. Seeing how performing a super maneuver immediately drops your Rage to 0, you can always calm down immediately by super-punching the air. As an optional rule, you can continue to gain Rage beyond your threshold, but once you're over 150%, you start to go berserk, giving your offensive bonuses, defensive penalties, and an irresistible urge to make at least one attack per turn, even if this would mean attacking your friends. We also get a short section on stunts, which basically amounts to "let the GM fudge everything". We also get a reminder on stun damage, noting how any physical attack can be set to stun with a -2 Accuracy penalty. Not really sure why this is necessary. We get some guidelines later in the chapter on when someone generally dies (Health falls below negative Stamina x 2), but the GM can always have them survive if he wants. After a random Lifting chart (Strength in Thrash is roughly twice as good as Mekton's Body stat, with our Sherry being able to bench press 525 pounds), we get to weapons! Weapons come in three categories (melee, missile, firearms), with the former being the most common. quote:The basic weapon strikes are designated Light Strike and Heavy Strike, and use the same modifiers as Light and Heavy Punch (see the maneuvers section), but with the modifiers of the weapon added in. Oh well, having it based on your basic punches at least makes somewhat sense. Those basic strike maneuvers we saw earlier didn't even have dice to roll, making that version of the Light Strike much weaker than a Light Punch, which is just weird. Melee weapons come with 5 stats: The amount of hands needed to carry them, their reach and their Accuracy, AP and Damage modifiers added to any weapon maneuver they're used with. Ranged weapons are a bit different as they don't use basic maneuvers. Their stat block already includes their maneuver. Most ranged weapons are also not muscle-powered, so they don't have a damage modifier, but rather the total damage already listed. Weird weapon-related things include:
The actual rules for armor a bit clunky. They add to your soak roll, but different amounts based on the type of atack (Impact, Thrust, firearms). There's also a "Coverage" stat which you have to roll under on a 1d10 to see whether the enemy actually hits an armored part, adding another unnecessary roll to the process. The highest Soak Bonus for impact damage (aka what you're mostly going to face) comes from the High-Tech Armor with +16 (aka -4 damage). Not sure if this is actually useful, as this will just make it more attractive to just spam low AP attacks. Suffice to say, Riddle of Steel / Blade of the Iron Throne, this is not. Epic Battle Rules This is a little optional modification for the big boss fights, where the fighters may or may not go Super-Saiyan beforehand. The changes are:
I don't think the Dizzy Threshold can quite keep up with the crazy triple-damage shenanigans going on once someone hulks out. We then go into the typical stuff about recovery (recovering from a fight can take days unless you use cinematic healing rules and meditate a lot), non-combat damage source, social interactions (aka "fame has its drawbacks") and what to spend your experience on. There's a somewhat neat rule about Training, which nets you Training Points that you can spend like Experience Points, provided that 50% of the points spend are proper Experience Points. So no sitting at home waxing your car till you're able to curbstomp Omega Rugal or that incredibly cheap bloke from Samurai Shodown VI. The chapter finishes with like the third version of learning stuff spontaneously so far, this one allowing to go into negative Experience Points or just getting a maneuver for free, provided there's an adventure revolving about learning the maneuver or something. Phew, I think this is getting a bit too long for an example fight. Thankfully, Chapter 7 (the GM section) is rather short, so I can probably do both in one post. After my last post, I also remembered how the character creation chapter had an example character. Let's see how Sherry fares against a normal starting character! Doresh fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jan 24, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 14:44 |
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So in the capitalistic furry future, you become a better marksman by being a paranoid conspiracy theory nutjob? As far as I know, just about every predator animal uses some form of grapple. It mostly amounts to "Tackle it, bite it at the neck, start worrying/shaking/rolling till it stops moving. If you have poison, this is a good time to pump it full of that stuff". Also, friggin' constrictor snakes. They are made to squeeze stuff to death. The dual wield rules remind me of an early Pathfinder playtest feat that allowed you to swap weapons mid-attack, essentially making all attacks with a single weapon. And it's good to know that Bio Booster Furry Guyver over here has armored its crotch. Very sensible. Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jan 24, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 17:18 |
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And you hone your senses by finding satanic pagan NWO symbolism everywhere. The artwork makes it hard to tell whether that thing is armor or just a freakish furry dude getting himself some weird body paint.
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# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 18:08 |
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hyphz posted:I actually saw a copy of that at one point borrowed from a random guy in an Anime society. Silhouette must've been a bit different back then. The Silhouette I now of doesn't really quite do superhuman stuff very well, and it's a bit gritty for a parody anime. Halloween Jack posted:I'd like to see more DP9 Silhouette system games in this thread. I remember looking into it back in the day when I was still trying to find the ultimate system, and I remember that, like Dune, it was a system where you roll your Attribute as a dice pool, then add your skill to the total. It seems like there was a trend at the time of using a resolution method that was novel just for its own sake. I don't have a problem with that per se, but I think that when you're designing a system it's astonishingly stupid to forgo actually designing it so that you know how the probabilities work, how things balance out, and what it even means for a character to have X points in a stat. You might just be able to convince me. I have a lot of 3rd edition stuff - aka "that edition where they wasted precious space with d20 conversions that may or may not be actually balanced or well thought out". Kurieg posted:
Why do they attach tiny axe blades on every pistol? I can sorta see that with a rifle as a sort of clunky bayonet, but those pistols are way too bendy and short for any sort of comfortable or practical use. That Primal artwork is kinda funny if you consider how WoW made every female non-Tauren look like a cosplaying human super model, no matter how much this clashes with the males' body proportions. Bestial Strength only comes in increments of +1? That's weird. I thought d20 always does this in +2 steps so you're actually guaranteed to get someting out of it (apart from lifting capacity). Also, it's funny how the Dwarven Avatar's beefed up punches are absolutely useless against a 5th-level Primal. PurpleXVI posted:The whole "prestige class" thing could have worked well, but it's full of so many incredibly dangerous pitfalls that can make a prestige class useless, unfun or overpowered that it just does not ever, to me, seem worth the trouble of doing it instead of just, say, designing a relatively robust system of feats and options for higher levels of the base classes. That would also have resolved the atrocious loving splat bloat of supplements introducing a new base class for every loving thing. I think they where just following the leader. Since WotC made lots of cash with "5 new classes! 16 new prestige clases! 42 new feats! 87 new spells!"-books, the other companies saw it as a good strategy I guess. And speaking of prestigle classes I really hate prestige classes bases like the Demon Hunter that are based on less than a handful of characters in the setting and are pretty much impossible to get into as a PC. I think that's the point where you should just make this a template or a feat chain, instead of highlighting a major flaw of class-based systems where the designers get too carried away ("Everyone has classes, so we need a class for everything"). Doresh fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Jan 25, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 10:56 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Feats with odd-number stat requirements was the backwards/post-hoc rationalization for retaining the traditional stat spread despite standardizing modifiers to +1 every even number, though I don't remember if that was d20 or PF. Right, this is in both d20 permutations. Still, it's a weird class ability, seeing how similar classes usually hand out +2s or bonus feats, not just something that has around a 50% chance of giving you a bonus or may or may not allow you to take a feat. That's what those stat increases every 4 levels are for. And apart from Two-Weapon Fighting, most feats generally settle for a score of 13 or 15, something you can easily qualify for from day 1.
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# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 18:00 |
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Yessod posted:Slayers d20 At which point did d20 become more complicated than Hero System? Halloween Jack posted:"Feats" as they existed in D20 aren't a design concept unto themselves; having special Advantages and Disadvantages was a staple of games throughout the 90s and beyond. The primary questions are how well they're balanced, and if they spring from a "Everything not explicitly permitted (by having the right feat) is forbidden" philosophy. The latter is why old-schoolers despise feats, and rightly so. Who doesn't love feats where you just go "Wait, I can't do that without the feat?!" I think where I kinda drew the line was when I wanted to make your typical axe 'n' board dwarven fighter in Pathfinder, looked at "Ye olde list of feats you have to take in order to not suck with this build", and then I realized I didn't really have any place for other feats until endgame. No place for flavor, no place for a "secondary" fighting style like a repeating crossbow. Seriously, is it really asking too much to grab a round piece of wood to block attacks and occasionally bash people in a system favoring two-handed weapons and cheesy high crit weapons? Hyper Crab Tank posted:Bonuses that get worse as you level up (because you obviously pick the best ones from the list first) are such a blatantly poor idea that it's kind of surprising no one noticed before adding them to everything. If you're going to do that, you should like... offer three meaningfully different ones and let you pick one, once. You want something that actually makes you feel different so you're actually customizing your dude. Don't forget Two-Weapon Fighting (and in Pathfinder Vital Strike) where you have to continue to burn feats just to keep up with everyone else. CommissarMega posted:
And HSD is starting to look more and more silly in comparison. gradenko_2000 posted:1. They turned goddamn CHARGE into a Feat. So D&D Next heroes have been taught by their parent's not to run around with pointy objects? Or do they go "How do I run with my sword?!" gradenko_2000 posted:One every 4 levels is the slowest progression, but other classes get them oftener: The Fighter gets 7 ability score increases instead of 4 because of course. I'd so put all of that into INT and/or CHA. Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Chapter 7: GM Section (and Combat Example) Now we've reached the final proper chapter (which doesn't say much seeing how the appendices take up the last third of the book), but before that, a little interlude... Combat that may or may not be mortal! In her quest to find the nefarious barrel breakers, Sherry McTappington has just entered her first tournament and is now facing Tomiko Yamada - aka that Judo girl that served as the example character for the character creation chapter! Let me quote her background: quote:Now comes the fun part. ^_^ Okay, her name is Tomiko Yamada. She is an 18-year-old judo fighter, originally from Kyoto, where she learned judo from her grandfather, despite his total inability to keep different quantities straight. Tomiko began entering tournaments only this year, after she was attacked by and defeated the infamous Pigeon Eddie, a ruthless criminal mastermind and practitioner of the Saiiko style of Karate, whose evil she now wishes to put an end to. Tomiko is friendly and outgoing, but never puts up with any injustice, to the point of occasional megalomania… She is fairly short and rather cute, and has short green hair for no apparent reason. In combat she wears her judo gi, which is bright blue in color. Now on to her character sheet. I've taken the liberties to write down the total soak roll, and I made a handy little table for her entire move list with all bonuses already factored in so i can just pick and roll: Tomiko Yamada Attributes: Intelligence 5, Focus 7, Charisma 5, Will 7, Strength 4, Agility 9, Stamina 7, Appearance 8 Base APs: 12 Chi: 32 Health: 28 Dizzy Threshold: 15 Rage Threshold: 21 Base Damage: Strength: +0 Focus: +3 Skills: Computer 3, Cooking 2, Language: English 4 (Japanese is native language), Taunt 5 Advantages & Disadvantages: Mentor 3 Disciplines: Blind Fighting 4 Styles: Judo 4 Soak Roll: 1d10 + 7 pre:Maneuver Acc APs Chi Dmg Move Notes Great Talon Shredder +13 10 5 1d10+3 None Projectile (Range 1) Screaming Eagle Shot * 24 * * * Combo Maneuver (Body Flip, Screaming Eagle Shot, Soaring Hawk Crusher) Soaring Hawk Crusher +11 12 - 1d6+2 None Grappling maneuver Body Flip +13 7 - 1d6 1 Grappling maneuver Foot Sweep +12 8 - 1d6 1 Crouching, Knockdown Heavy Kick +10 9 - 1d6+2 None Heavy Punch +13 7 - 1d6 None Light Kick +14 3 - 1d4+1 1 Light Punch +15 2 - 1d4 1 Tackle +10 10 - 1d6 4 Knockdown for both Breakfall - - - - 2 Add Agility to Soak vs Knockdown Dash - 4 - - 6 Dodge +13 5 - - 3 Evasion Grab +13 3 - - 2 Grab stuff for combos I guess Jump +16 3 - - 9 Aerial, +2 Dmg while jumping, Evasion vs projectiles Movement - 1 - - 1 Maneuver Modifier Parry +14 2 - - 2 Block Her "Great Talon Shredder" is your standard Chi Blast, with the "Short Blast" modifier. This is one of the worst modifiers you could possibly take, as it reduces the Blast's range from Focus + Will (which would be 14 in her case) to 1. All this because of 2 friggin' CP. Her "Soaring Hawk Crusher" is just the vanilla maneuver "Leaping Slam" retitled, which is fine and all, if a bit bland. Oh, and her Combo Maneuver is also not rules legal, as the base maneuver's combined AP are larger than the allowed limit (number of hits times 7). I think I will just treat this as a Super Combo (which has no limit). She doesn't have one, anyways, and it's not like she would use this very often (premade combos can't be aborted AFAIK, so she's kinda screwed if she misses). I also just noticed that Breakfall is another of these maneuvers that doesn't actually work like a maneuver and is more like an Advantage. Whoops. Anyways, this is looking fine and all. Now here's Sherry with her expanded sheet: Sherry McTappington Attributes: Intelligence 6, Focus 4, Charisma 4, Will 5, Strength 8 (10/6), Agility 10, Stamina 8, Appearance 6 Base APs: 12 Chi: 13 Health: 32 Dizzy Threshold: 16 Rage Threshold: 17 Base Damage: Strength: +4 (+6/+2) Focus: +0 Skills: First Aid 1, Intimidation 3, Language (Scottish) 3, Lore (Scotland) 3, Survival 3, Swimming 2, Taunt 4 Advantages & Disadvantages: Area Specialisation (Punch), Delusion (minor, "Scootlund is th' best!"), No Kick Training, Pacifism (no killing) Disciplines: Body Hardening 4, Iron Fist 3 Styles: Fist of the Highlands (Generic Style) 4 Soak Roll: 1d10 + 20 pre:Maneuver Acc APs Chi Dmg Move Notes Gaelic Rage - 2 8 - - Super; For 4 turns 2x APs, +2 Move & Acc to all maneuvers Lightning Step +16 1 - - 3 Evasion, can use Punch with AP <= 6 immediately afterwards with +3 Acc Quickening Knuckle +17 1 - 1d6+7 6 Head Butt +15 6 - 1d6+7 1 Heavy Punch +15 6 - 1d6+7 None Iron Fist +14 8 - 1d6+10 None Knuckle fist +17 4 - 1d6+9 1 Light Punch +17 1 - 1d4+7 Uppercut +16 4 - 1d6+7 1 Knockdown, Counter vs Aerial Circular Parry +17 5 - - 3 Block, 1 use lasts entire turn Dash - 4 - - 6 Dodge +14 5 - - 3 Evasion Grab +14 3 - - 2 Grab stuff for combos I guess Jump +17 3 - - 10 Aerial, +2 Dmg while jumping, Evasion vs projectiles Kippup +16 3 - - 1 "Get out of Knockdown for free" card Movement - 1 - - 1 Maneuver Modifier Parry +15 2 - - 2 Block (Why does Kippup have Accuracy, anyways? It's a purely reactive maneuver that works every time according to the description o_O ) As you can see, Tomiko's low Strength and focus on high-AP maneuvers seem to put her at a severe disadvantage. Not to mention that high-AP maneuvers also tend to have low Accuracy. Oh well, it'll be fun anyways. quote:"The Wheel of Fate is turning... Rebel 1... Action!" I'm not going to use a hexgrid for this 1-on-1 duel. I might do that for something like BattleTech or Heavy Gear, but in this case, I think that keeping track of the relative distance should do the trick just fine, and it's kinda closer to the source material. Turn 1 Since both have a style level of 4, it come down to the 1d10 initiative roll... which ends up at 10 for both. Well, I guess another roll to determine who goes first... Sherry 3, Tomiko 5. So the judo girl goes first! Sherry: AP 22, Health 32, Rage 0 Tomiko: AP 22, Health 28, Rage 0 Distance: 5 With APs so close and 5 hexes to cover, Tomiko doesn't really have much options here (sure was a good idea to make that Chi Blast short ranged...), so she goes for the noob tactic of "jump and kick combo" (in this case a light kick so save APs). Sherry could counter this with her Uppercut, but she has better things to do, namely her Lightning Step! The combat rolls are 1d10+14 for Tomiko's jump kick (based on the kicks's Accuracy. Jump's Accuracy is only used for dodging projectiles) and 1d10+16 for Sherry's Lightning Step... 15 and 21! As Tomiko lands where Sherry stood mere moments ago, she suddenly spots the Scottish girl right besides here, with a very big grin on her face and a raised fist, performing an immediate Quickening Knuckle with a +3 Accuracy Bonus as per Displacement's description (*insert dramatic shounen anime freeze-frame stuff here*). A bit tacken by surprise. Tomiko immediately blo... err. parries, seeing how it would be pretty hard to beat a 1d10 + 20. She instead reduces the incoming damage by 1d10 + 14. Seeing how the Quickening Fist deals 1d6 + 6 damage, this would turn out to be 1 damage anyways, but we need to roll to see how much Rage Tomiko gains... 9. And has Parry has a move of 2, she decides to dash back that may hexes. (Neat. Blocking strong dudes a couple times raises your Rage like crazy. Let's see if that helps her in any ways.) Sherry: AP 20, Health 32, Rage 0 Tomiko: AP 14, Health 27, Rage 9 Distance: 2 With initiative gonig over to Sherry, it's time for a spontaneous 10-hit Quickening Knuckle combo extravaganza! As Sherry has to announce this beforehand, Tomiko has time to go "Oh crap!" and consider her options. All she can really do here is bloc... err, parrying like there's no tomorrow, as dodging would eat up her AP fast. Even then, chances are she'll run out of APs... (I'll just roll the damage as her parries will reduce anything to 1, and even then I'll only be doing it till she becomes enraged.) Hit 1: Damage 11 Hit 2: Damage 8 => TOMIKO SMASH (Rage Threshold reached, resulting in AP net gain of +1) ! Sherry: AP 18, Health 32, Rage 0 Tomiko: AP 13, Health 25, Rage 21 Distance: 0 Enraging doesn't help her much this turn apart from the AP boost. With all her remaining AP, she can parry 7 further maneuvers, pusing her AP into negative -1 territory, which will carry over to next turn. Hit 3 - 9: Nothing to see here... Sherry: AP 11, Health 32, Rage 0 Tomiko: AP -1, Health 18, Rage 21 Distance: 0 What's this? Sherry can still do 11 more Quickening Knuckles, without Tomiko being able to do anything? Let the fun commence! Hit 1: Damage 11, Soak Roll 8 (aka -2 Damage) => Health 9 Hit 2: Damage 12, Soak Roll 8 (aka -2 Damage) => Health -1 KO! (The other hits won't be rolled, but are still performed as some kind of finisher because why not) Long story short: To win in Thrash, you have to be Kenshiro. Unless your opponent also min-maxed a defensive maneuver down to 1 AP, he'll eventually run out, leaving him wide open. You can kinda discourage this attack spamming with a sped-up Power Block (which deals your Strength Bonus in damage back to the attacker), but you will still lose Health faster than your opponent with that, and you'll be building up his Rage which will just end up making his attacks stronger. Oh well, now back to the chapter I'm supposed to cover here! GM Section quote:"GAME OVER! This chapter boils down to listing various fighting game genre convetions (aka tropes) and possible deviations. Being Creative: Aka "Stop using tournaments so you don't have to make dozens of NPCs, and come up with a setting that is not modern day Earth" Elements: Fighting games tend to be very action-packed and offer more or less humor. There are also lots of subplots involving rivalries and stuff, and don't make the overall Power Level too ridiculous because we've all seen what happened with that DBZ Fuzion RPG. Cliched Enemy Types: All your stereotypical villains, though they all basically amount to "super powerful jerk". Roleplaying Anime: As Thrash is geared more towards Anime fighters, we get a paragraph what this can mean for your campaign. You basically invoke the "Rule of Cool" a lot and be extra careful about the story. Because if anything is known for riveting storytelling, it's fighting games. Roleplaying Vs. Kicking rear end: Aka "Don't forget the roleplaying part, and make NPCs more than a bunch of numbers". Standard stuff, really. Send In The Clones!: Mirror Fights in fighting games exist. Use them for Thrash, you can. Other Genres: Thrash supposedly also works for Action Movies, Anime (didn't we already have that a couple times?), Fantasy and Mecha, with the Anime and Mecha genre having their own sourcebook by a guy called Rob Pool. The former happened, the latter not so much, though there was another mecha sourcebook based on Rob's ideas or something. Monsters: You could have the PCs fight dragons and other monsters, but this seems unlikely seeing how this section just goes "Have the GM wing everything". That was a bit short and bland, to be honest. Though I guess some of this could be useful if you're new to roleplaying and know little about fighting game or anime tropes (raising the question why you would download this pdf then). I would've liked something like a guide how to make boss characters challenging for the whole group. If they don't have Circular Parry, they kinda run out of AP fast, and we've just seen wha thappens then. Next time: The first and biggest appendix: Weird Powers (aka "Stuff that should've been in the character creation chapter but isn't, because being psychic is apparently not as 'realistic' as being able to throw energy balls, even though most of these Weird Powers actually give you an excuse for being able to do that")! Doresh fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jan 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 21:24 |
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Kurieg posted:Except Vital strike is somewhat of a trap if memory serves. You can only use it on an attack action, which means you can't use it on a charge, or during spring attack, or anything else other than 'standard action attack' Vital Strike is only really useful if you really need something in situations where you can't full attack, and even then there's usually no point in taking more than the first Vital Strike. It's a little more useful for classes that don't get full BAB, as their full attacks aren't as good anyways. Though as everything, I've heard you can cheese the hell out of this feat chain if you're a druid who turns into a T-Rex, or someone with the Enlarge Person and Lead Blades spells, a combination that beefs up your weapon damage by two size categories. quote:You can move and attack, but you don't get any benefit from it without the feat. 5e is just similar enough to 4e and 3.5e that it's easy to screw up and take actions that can get you killed because the rules don't support you anymore. Like, you can flank an enemy but that doesn't actually grant you advantage, even though the entire concept of the advantage dice came from combat advantage. Also 5e has short rests during which you can spend your hit dice (which are suspiciously similar to healing surges but only replenish by half your total every day), but a short rest in 5e needs to be at least an hour during which you're doing nothing else. Unlike 4e's short rests which are basically "are you not in combat anymore? Fantastic." So D&D is the roleplaying equivalent of being punished for you rmuscle memory?
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 21:44 |
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A good thing White Wolf wasn't around during the D&D paranoia days. Seems all the actual nutjobs were just waiting for them.Simian_Prime posted:So I'm looking at the F&F archive, and realized... there's no "Q" entry! Let's fix that, shall we? This also sounds like F&F could need a bit of Qin: The Warring States. Maybe after I've appeased the demand for more Dream Pod 9 stuff. LeSquide posted:You leave Stumpy Bill alone. He's the only one with a gun. Stumpy Bill, the greatest hero of them all. He faces every monster despite knowing full well that he can't outrun it. (Though I'm wondering where exactly he's aiming at...) Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Appendix 1: Weird Powers Little addendum from last time: the Knuckle Fist and its derivatives actually do 2d4 base damage instead of 1d6 (making it even more broken than in the demonstration). Got kinda carried away with all those 1d6 maneuvers. Me fail, and sorry Anyhow, let's move on to Weird Powers, which give you all kinds of freakish powers to hopefully make your character even more ridiculous! Aliens quote:"What are 'ya?! Some kind of bottom-feeding scum-sucking algae eater?!" This short paragraph gives some general guidelines for alien characters (or really any character that is more or less non-humanoid). It amounts to pre-defined attribute bonuses/penalties and generally coming up with new maneuvers, styles and possible Advantages/Disciplines to factor in their alien physiology (as say tentacle monsters can't really punch or kick). A bit vague, but at least there are style/maneuver creation rules in a later appendix, and many of the following Weird Powers have some unique abilities you can use as a guideline (or pick directly). Cybernetics Cyborgs do pop up in fighting games, but they tend to be a bit rare outside of Mortal Kombat (weird how this section mentions Fulgore and Omega Rugal, but not Jax or any of the cyborg ninjas. Oh well, you can't please everyone). In terms of roleplaying, cyborgs get the short end of the stick as other fighters tend to see them as "cheaters" (because teleporting, throwing fireballs and slicing stuff up with your fingers is totally fine), and some tournaments won't even allow them in. In game terms, being a cyborg is an advantage with levels, each of which replacing one of your body parts until your almost 100% machine at level 6. If you want to make an actual robot however, you have to wait for the Thrash Sourcebook. As a cyborg, your Strength will be set to 9 if you originally had a lower score (allowing you to safe a lot of attribute points at character creation if you just go with Strength 1 and then buy this advantage), and you can bump your Strength to 15 (the maximum Attribte score) without paying extra CPs or having to get that Advantage that raises your current limit from 10. Neat, though I'm not sure how that Strength minimum comes from. Do cybernetic implants give off steroids, or is an overdose part of the surgery? You also add your Cybernetics level to your Soak Bonus, which means this will at most stop 2 additional points of damage. You'd think a mostly metal body would do more here. Lastly, your artifical body parts allow you to cheat when it comes to purchasing stuff, substitution your Cybernetics level times 2 for any attribute requirement. This is about the cheapest way to get that amazing Flash Strike modifier without having to bump Focus and Will to pretty high levels. Cyborgs can also buy "Cybernetic Systems", which are a couple unique Advantages to get for your character - at least I think they're advantages, which is kinda important if you get those after character creation because everything's more expensive after that.
Elementals While you can already throw around fire, lightning and whatnot by taking modifiers and changing some descriptions, some characters are a lot more in tune with their elment of choice. This seems to be quite comming in the King of Fighters franchise, with characters like Kyo Kusanagi (magical pyrokinesis) or Kula Diamond (cryokinesis through science!). Being such an elemental gives you a passive bonus and access to special maneuvers related to your element (earth, air, fire, water, wood, metal, ice and electricity), one of which being the free Elemental Aura that does something different depending on your element, and you can get the Rage Burn super maneuver for 1 CP cheaper. I hope this is worth it, because as a 9 CP Advantage, this is pretty expensive. Could be a CP tax to enforce the rarity of multi-elemental characters. I'll follow the book and sort the elemental stuff in general maneuvers and elemental-specific maneuvers. The individual elements already appear in the general section to notify of their unique traits, but I'll move that information into its "proper" section. General Elemental Maneuvers I'll skip the Elemental Aura and Elemental Form maneuvers here, as they heavily depend on your element in question.
Air Elementals Air elementals can buy some maneuvers like Air Jump and Levitation cheapter than normal. Their Elemental Aura comes in the form of a protective wind current that gives you a soak bonus of +8 and can cause attackers to get thrown away from you. The elemental form is the same, but with a bigger soak bonus (+15).
Earth Elementals The power of the earth again makes a couple maneuvers cheaper, half of which are restorative maneuvers. The Elemental Aura gives a hefty Soak Bonus of +16, but reduces Agility by -2. Elemental Form makes that +24 and -3, respectively. I think I'd rather use something that does not reduce the game's god stat.
Electricity This one does not make some maneuvers cheaper, but instead makes all your Chi Blasts electricity-based for free (aka +1 Damage, - AP), and you can get Power Strike for just +1 CP. Elemental Aura sounds pretty nifty as it damages anyone hitting you based on your Focus and boosts all of your physical attacks by +1d6. Elemental Form is again the same, better.
Fire Fire grants the same passive bonuses as electricity (with Flaming Blasts granting +2 Damage instead of electricity-based ones, of course), but also makes Fire Breath cheaper. Elemental Aura and Form also work the same as electricity's.
Ice All Chi Blasts are Ice Blasts (+2 Damage, Dizzy lasts 2 turns), and you can upgrade them to Ice Crystal Blasts (+3 Damage, +2 Chi) for just +1 CP. Elemental Aura and Form are like earth's.
Metal Doesn't come with anything passive apart from the cheaper Rage Burn everyone gets. Other than that, it's like earth.
Water Also doesn't have passives apart from Rage Burn. Elemental Aura and Form work like with air, with the added bonus of fitting through small holes while in Elemental Form.
Wood It's basically the same as earth, with one fewer cheap maneuver and the option of turning the Elemental Aura into a "Leaf Shield" that works like the air version of Elemental Aura.
I tell ya, having D&D-esque spells written like fighting game maneuvers is weird. Monsters Nothing here of substance, except for "wait for that DarkStalkers sourcebooks that either never existed or at least does not exist anymore". Mutant Animals You're a furry, with access to further advantages to represent your animalistic abilities. I'm really not sure why this book makes so many distinctions between creatures. All the stuff you can get here would work just as well for aliens and monsters.
And here are three maneuvers your furry fighter can have:
Psychics Everyone knows that psychics like M. Bison or Athena don't really use telekinesis and mind reading, but are rather some kind of "psychic elemental" using lots of energy-based attacks - though that doesn't stop the book from presenting all those more traditional psychic powers. Like everything before in this appendix, being a psychic is an advantage, more specifically one that comes in levels like being a cyborg. You can buy focus maneuvers as psychic maneuvers, which are cheaper and use your Psychic level in place for Focus. Power Strike is also cheaper. Not really sure why you couldn't make this an advantage without level and have your Focus work normally. Sounds needlessly complicated. On to psychic disciplines. They're your standard affair, with telekinesis being called "psychokinesis" for some reason. And of course you get Telepathy which at high levels allows you to mind control people and trap them in a hallucination, killing them while their unconscous or just mess with them. Fun stuff. Now onto Psionic maneuvers (shouldn't that be "Psychic maneuvers"?)!
Sorcery These are a bunch of "Magic Paths", aka Disciplines that give you magic stuff to toy with. Some spells are require hour-long rituals, whereas most are fast enough to be used in combat - though those should be better prepared as scrolls beforehand, as spontaneous casting kinda blows here (spend 11 APs for 2 turns vs a scroll's 4 AP). Being a sorcerer requires lots of studying, and you get what is essentially Read Magic for free. To be really good as casting, you can get yourself the Sorcery "Style", which is priced like a style, but doesn't actually work as one. It's just a fancy Discipline boosting your spell rolls and Chi total. It also makes focus maneuvers cheaper and gives you a lot of meta-magic- and anti-magic-esque abilities, including an energy absorbtion ability that can easily make you completely immune against energy attacks, at no real AP cost from your side. The Magic Paths in question are 7 (at least according to the text; it's actually 9) total:
So far, the best course of actions seems to be to start as a nerdy weakling, only to then become a cyborg necromancer with Wood maneuvers (a cybernecrodruid, if you will), min-maxing your Strength and giving your the best debuffs in the book that will make your opponent very useless . Add Telepathy for extra lulz Next time, we look at the last 2 very short appendixes to give a final verdict! Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jan 28, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 20:18 |
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Now I have to know: was Hitler in league with the werewolves? And East Germany with vampires?Plague of Hats posted:I think it's just a typical social trend, one we see today with MRAs or grogs or whatever, where something that's always been a problem is drawn into prominence by broader elements of the community than just "Many WoD LARPers are wannabe rapists." In some ways the 90's darksplosion did enable those particular kinds of shitlords to come out of the woodwork, but I don't think that's really any more WoD's fault than it is, say, D&D4's or Fate's for the current prominence or awareness of MRAs in the hobby. There's more of that kind of stuff going on all over. Like every other social trend, despite protestations otherwise, RPGs aren't exempt from this one either. RPGs are far from being the only place for crazies. I just recently had a guy in a Youtube comment section trying to make me feel bad for ridiculing his belief in Slenderman. EverettLO posted:
That's the influence of post-SW d6. Star Wars didn't really use a points-based system to balance race abilities with each other. The later rules (d6 Space/Adventure/Fantasy and that one thing before) introduced the concept of races as templates with stuff you could already get directly (within reasons. Giant-sized flying humans are a bit uncommon outside of super hero campaigns). Night10194 posted:A lot of this problem could be solved if the supernatural elements of the gamelines didn't run the whole drat world. 'Oh poo poo, the Tsarist regime has fallen! What do the supernaturals do when caught up in the storm of a huge political storm and brutal civil war?' is a legit good hook. 'Oh no! The Brujah and Bone Gnawers have defeated the Silver Fangs and maybe some mortal politicians were used as dupe.' is just boring. It's amazing how these secret societies of supernatural critters whose exposure to the world public would drastically change everything spend so much time constantly meddling with human affairs. You'd think they'd be a little bit more careful and distant. Simian_Prime posted:Qelong Well, at least its more forgiving than "save or die". Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jan 29, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 17:16 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:"I forgot how cloth works! " "What is this strange fuzzy stuff?!" Evil Mastermind posted:The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Grim CyberReapers? Now Torg is just spoiling us I wonder if the creators of Gargoyles knew of this sourcebook. Cythereal posted:It's very consistent, actually: some of the Nazis once they were in power colluded with supernatural powers, including a few advisors like Goring, but Hitler himself? Absolutely, 100% human no dealings of any kind with the supernatural. The Holocaust? Completely absolutely 100% human doing, absolutely no supernatural involvement or supernatural victims. So it was not some kind of gigantic blood sacrifice ritual with world-shattering consequences involving the ultimate evils of just about every supernatural faction? I am so dissappoint, White Wolf LatwPIAT posted:World of Darkness: Gypsies talks about how the Roma part of the holocaust was perpetrated because Hitler and the SS had learned about the secret of their magical blood, and wanted to experiment upon and exterminate them. Oh well, now that's at least something. Thrash: Anime and Fighting Game Martial Arts RPG Appendix 2+3: Miscellaneous & System Notes Now on the the last two appendices! Animal Compantion Characters with the Animal Companion are like Nakoruru and Galford from Samurai Shodown in that they have a loyal animal to occasionally help them out. The level of your Advantage determines how easy and fast you can call your animal companion. I would also allow the level to act as the animal's style, as they don't really have one. Your choice of animal consists of alligator, bird of prey, camel, dog, elephant, horse, panther, boa, poison snake, tiger and wolf. Panthers and tigers have the best attributes (8 in Strength, Agility and Stamina). Elephants are extremely strong and tough (Strength 14, Stamina 20), but their Agility is only 3, which means that they can't hit for poo-poo and can't hope to dodge anything. Even parrying ain't that great as that is also based on your Agility. Sherry could totally own one, which I guess is always good for a laugh. Seeing how they can't really punch and kick, animals get their own set of maneuvers, like Claw or Bite (which is a lot better than the mutant animal version for some reason). Boas can of course Constrict, but I don't see that being useful seeing how Boas only have a Strength of 5, and contested Strength rolls are required to keep squeezing. All in all, animal companions are not nearly as good at fighting alongside your character than in D&D. Still there are some special maneuvers you can get for more utility.
So yeah, elephants may be worthless in battle, but you can just park them outside and enjoy your extra 24 Chi and 60 Health. Artifacts A bunch of example artifacts, a lot of which are greatly inspired by D&D. Note that you can start with any of these if you're willing to pay the CP.
I think you should be very careful with these artifacts. They range from "occasionally useful" to "absurdly large boost to your combat abilities". The Palladium Book of Weapons, Armor and Castles These are 2 short conversion tables for the "invaluable general sourcebook on ancient weapons and other tools of war from all over the world". I'm not going to copy these tables here as I've heard Palladium Books is kinda sue-happy. Generic NPCs A bunch of generic cannon fodder that doesn't pose much of a challenge thanks to mostly low Agility and styles. They range from beat cops and thugs all the way to SWAT officers and "warrior thugs", the latter two being closer to a poorly-optimized starting character. Kinda handy if you want a quick brawl. Appendix 3: System Notes This single page appendix gives you guidelines for creating your very own styles and maneuvers, both using a points system. The weaksauce Discipline styles all cost 0 points, and Jeet Kune Do and the Generic Style are both 10 (even though Generic is more versatile). The most expensive style is Wu Shu with 19 points, which I guess is kinda accurate as that style increases both Agility and AP. Wanna play a fun game and see how much CP a Light Punch costs? It's 8, making it the most expensive vanilla maneuver along with Dim Mak (which is both slower and less accurate and therefore not as good). Can we fix it? I must admit, Thrash has some interesting ideas. The AP system is a bit crunchy, but it's fitting for the source material and allows to emulate stuff like "frame advantage" (the difference in recovery time between your attack and the opponent's block). It certainly has a rather action-packed turn flow. However, the big problem comes with the AP costs themselves. It is always better to go for low AP maneuvers. The price in AP and low Accuracy you have to pay for the "stronger" maneuvers is just not worth the tiny increase in damage. After modifying the crap out of your maneuvers so they cost just 1 AP, fights against "normal" characters are already won, as they are toast when they run out of AP. Modifying also creatly encourages you to just take as few maneuvers as possible so you can pimp them up the whazoo. It's nice the book tries to give roleplaying justifications for the ominous "super meter", but most fighting games themselves don't really deal with that. Tying this to your overall state of rage doesn't fit a couple fighting game settings. And the optional rule of going crazy when your rage becomes too high doesn't quite work out as parrying high-Strength opponents fills up your threshold fast. Who goes into a frenzy from blocking three punches? So yeah, can we fix it? Well, I suppose the system could already benefit from just taking the average of your Soak roll. The roll is just a pointless extra step, with damage rolls already providing enough randomness. Most importantly however, you probably need to redo most if not all maneuvers from scratch to make the slower ones actually viable. It probably helps to make the AP costs much closer to each other, with maybe a range of 5-8 used for everything. When it comes to modifiers, I'd ban the AP-reducing ones, or at least drastically reduce the amount of AP they cut. Styles should be generalized into what is basically a Base Attack Bonus, or make the Generic Style the only one allowed. More detailed styles just introduce balancing issues, and several games just don't really lend themselves well to such a format. Abilities could also benefit from having less of an impact. Agility is a god stat, and if you're Strength is too low, it doesn't really matter with what you're hitting your opponent (making low AP maneuvers again rule supreme). With all said and done, The system's quite fun to goof around, but things get ugly once you exploit and break stuff. Kinda like a crazy fighting game with very poor balance. As for Ewen Cluney, he has moved on to much different and better projects, and I hope we haven't seen the last of him. Next Time?! There are quite a few of Thrash sourcebooks (not to mention Thrash 2.0 Beta), and it's not even the only fighting game RPG to try to fill the void SF:STG left. Though that's a story for another time... Since I'm currently a bit mecha-crazy and seeing how there seems to be demand for more Dream Pod 9 stuff, I feel like covering something from the last edition of the Silhouette RPG aka SilCORE. That edition put all the actual rules into a single book, giving the setting books more space for fluff and d20 conversion stuff I don't think anyone ever cared about. So, what should it be?
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 20:26 |
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Dammit I forgot GearKrieg >_< !Halloween Jack posted:I'm still kind of weirded out at how SilCORE had all these rules for small-unit tactics, something I'd never really seen in a RPG before, but it didn't have much in the way of rules for individual combat moves. That is kind of weird. Though the FAQ/errata thing for SilCORE does come with advanced combat maneuvers. Kai Tave posted:On the one hand, trying to turn an abhorrent historical tragedy into GOTH PUNK wank is kind of distasteful. On the other hand, when you have every last bit of human history be the secret work of supernatural creatures except the genocidal purges orchestrated by a syphilitic madman, that one humans get to own, it sort of swings back around and becomes its own kind of distasteful. It always boils down to consistency. That one time it's 100% human, and they do that. Is there something along the lines of "We need to control human history because they're pretty messed up on their own." in WoD? quote:Jovian Chronicles is a game that seems like it should have been interesting but my own personal experience with it is that it tried to emphasize the "hard sci-fi" aspects to the point where the whole "mecha Top Gun pseudo-Gundam" aspects were basically little more than an afterthought. Most of the Jovian Chronicles discussions I remember from the DP9 mailing list I used to subscribe to were people pondering how to best de-emphasize the mecha in a game with a giant robot plastered on the cover. Sure, you can make it more hard sc-fi-ish, but I have too much of a soft spot for giant robots.
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 21:01 |
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Libertad! posted:Because the D20 System back in the early Aughties was hailed by Wizards as this universal, all-for-one game system. A year before D20 Modern they had Call of Cthulhu D20, also by Wizards of the Coast. Those DP9 products I'm currently targeting fell victim to this. Though they didn't make something like "Heavy Gear d20", they just dual-statted things. Selachian posted:After the license lapsed, an indy publisher picked up the rules and polished them into a new system, Wild World Wrestling. Haven't played that one yet though. I have WW and W. The main differences I can see (I should really read up the review of Know Your Role for the details) is general streamlining. No classes, attributes where changed and now only show their bonus (like 3rd edition Mutants & Masterminds). To specialize your wrestler, you get to pick feats/traits/abilities known as "Gimmick Enhancements". You get more with each level, and you can get additional ones by picking flaws - which are guaranteed to trigger when you least need them because you opponent decides when they do. Looks really neat. A shame it doesn't really seem to have a community. Tsilkani posted:Are you doing 2nd Ed or 1st? 2nd. I only have the latest editions. AFAIK, 2nd edition only really has one book, so there's more than enough for you to do. Midjack posted:Jovian Chronicles please. I think we have a winner. LeSquide posted:I'm going to say Core Command. I heard it was a mess with some neat ideas. JC is the clear winner, but don't worry. Core Command will happen. Not Vault Boy is coming across as a very dark version of Dennis the Menace in this chapter. And d20 Modern didn't have throwing knives and a shortbow o_O ? Warlocktopus posted:The attempts to weed the giant robots out of DP9 games is something I've encountered before. Back in my horrible, horrible MU*ing days, there was a Heavy Gear MUX which explicitly mentioned that giant robots were NOT part of it. I always wondered what on earth was the point. "I keep telling you guys: The only way to truly experience the BattleTech universe requires you to ditch those silly mechs!" Halloween Jack posted:I can understand where the sentiment comes from. I, for example, don't care much for giant robots, but the politics of Jovian Chronicles sounds really interesting, and I like political sort-of-hard military sci-fi. Consider looking at it from the other direction: Say you're intrigued by the setting, science, and "war is hell" message of Hammer's Slammers, but nuclear tanks and hovercrafts are dull...you want giant robots! Nuclear robots all the way. Doresh fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 30, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 18:27 |
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The Lone Badger posted:Gears are more sort of 'medium robots', so maybe they were just ditching some of the stupider Striders? Don't forget the recent introduction of Gear Striders.
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# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 20:35 |
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Fossilized Rappy posted:Regular knives technically have a throwing range increment in d20 Modern, but in Exodus they made another set of nearly identical stats specifically for knives meant to be thrown. And just a compound bow and not any more primitive shortbow or longbow, at least not in any of the Open Game Content books Wizards of the Coast put out. They statted up four different kinds of crossbow, though. Oh well, I suppose the shortbow does make more sense in historical or post-apocalyptic settings. Tsilkani posted:I'll dig them out over the weekend, then, and maybe get a couple write-ups started while I wait for you to start hitting the core. Probably won't post anything until you've at least covered the setting chapter so I can hand hooks off that. mllaneza posted:After I finish work on Squadron Strike:Traveller I'll find time to do a bit about Lightning Strike. That was a really nicely done tactical space combat game with giant robots and spaceships. There was also a campaign game that was basically Axis & Allies in the solar system. Groovy *puts on shades* Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook You demanded it: Jovian Chronicles, everyone! But first a bit of backstory: When Dream Pod 9 released its currently last iteration of the Silhouette CORE (aka SilCORE) RPG rules, they bundled all the rules into a single boook, with the company's various lines getting a main setting book that had now much more place for setting information (though they did include a couple new rules here and there to better fit the setting). This was back in 2003 (with this particular book here coming out in 2004), when the OGL ruled supreme and allowed the market to be flooded with d20 products of varying levels of quality. Naturally, DP9 wanted some slice of that d20-shaped pie, so this iteration of SilCORE was dual-statted. The core book had some short guidelines for converting characters to d20, with an optional rule that turned BAB and Defense into skills. All the other books came with further conversions for the rules, equipment and vehicles introduced. The d20 factor is also why all of the main setting books are called "Player's Handbook". There are no other handbooks. Strangely enough, they didn't actually provide guidelines to convert SilCORE vehicles directly, instead using Guardians of Order's d20 Mecha rules (with which DP9 also released the d20-only Mecha Compendium). A bit if you ask me, seeing how vehicle creation is one of SilCORE's cornerstones. Oh well, on to the actual book! Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter serves as a short summary of the setting, with some rules and roleplaying campaign bits so you know what you're getting yourself into. The Setting Jovian Chronicles' setting is a bit like classic Gundam, with a bit of Zone of the Enders thrown in. The default starting date is 2210+. Humanity has been colonizing the solar system for over a decade now, and the colonies have since declared independence from Earth, which was too busy with its collapsing economy to do anything against it. Unfortunately for the colonies, Earth as recovered, and the new government isn't too happy with the current situation. Things have quickly taking on a Cold War atmosphere, with every side building up its military for an eventual war. The standard mode of play assumes the PCs being Exo-Armor (the setting's mecha) pilots of the Jovian Confederation protecting their space country from CEGA (Central Earth Government & Administration, pronounced like the game developer), but just about every faction and occupation is open for play. As Jovian Chronicles has its root in classic Real Robot anime, you can expect similar themes: War is nothing to be excited about. Nothing is without consequences, and the factions are anything but black-and-white. This is a conflict where good friends or relatives migth end up on different sides. And if my memory of Universal Century Gundam serves me correct, you should never fall in love. Ever. Oh, and there's also this: quote:Music: Many anime are known for their great soundtrack. This can enhance your playing experience, too. An opening theme song to start each session is almost mandatory. Genre Points Genre Points were one of the new optional additions to the rules in this edition. They are your typical Action/Hero/Whatever points which you can spend to influence your actions or the plot. The following uses are seen as fitting for Jovian Chronicles:
History This section starts off with a quick history on mankinds first baby steps into space, with a mention of Gerard K. O'Neills design of a large, cylinder-shaped space station that could house thousands of people (which does end up happening in the setting). The first major diversion from actual history starts at 1997 when NASA begun a Solar Power Staellite project as a means to revolutionize energy production. The first satellite was succesfully deployed in 1999, which was followed by an entire array of solar panels. Things really started to take off with the invention of fusion engines in 2007 by a team of North American and Japanese scientists. Suddenly, flights from and to Earth's orbit became efficient to the point of being somewhat economically profitable. Things became even better with magnetic accelerators that - apart from making for nifty guns and engines - allowed you to just shoot cargo into orbit. For safer transportations, you could also have space stations lift stuff up directly with a "skyhook". Aiming to move beyond Earth's orbit in search for contruction material, the first moon base was established in 2024, with the first Mars mission starting in 2027. Space colonies also started to crop up. With Earth's ever increasing population and the orbit getting a bit crowded as well, mankind was looking for other planets to colonize, starting with a tiny settlement on Mars. Various companies were formed to spearhead the colonization process, as they needed space stations and colonies to house their workers near the various planets whose resources have suddenly become ripe for the taking. The Jovian Gas Mining Corporation was the first of these companies, building their first space station around Jupiter in 2037. Even terraforming was being done with Venus. The second half of the 21st century saw Earth's collapse, brought on by a catastrophic state of its environment followed by utter chaos and instability. Anyone who could afford it left the planet for one of the various colonies. Now ruling from the orbit of a rather FUBARed planet, the newly titles United Space Nations could only watch as Mars and other colonies declared their independence and went their own way. The various colonies saw each other largely isolated from each other. Still, technology marches on, and advances in ECM and stealth technology led to larger and larger Exo-Suits (aka power armor). Finally, 2162 saw the apparently anime-loving Jovian Confederation rolling out the first Exo-Armor. Back on Earth, Europe and North America started to get their act together, forming "The Union", with the goal to unify and stabilize the planet once again, by force if necessary. This finally came to fruition in 2182. CEGA was born, contact with the colonies re-established, and trade and tourism flourished again. Things started to get sour again with the start of the 23rd century. Venusians started showing interest in Jupiter thanks to recently-discvered lifeforms on the planet that may or may not hold the key to eternal life, and Terran scientist Dr. Agram Peyarje developed a system for thought-based machinery control which CEGA planned to use for military purposes. Dr. Peyarje wanted none of that and requested political asylum from the Jovian Confederation. A covert operation to get the doctor to Jupiter didn't quite go as smooth as expected. The Jovians got the doctor, but found themselves chased by an entire fleet, composed of CEGA forces who didn't want to lose their mad scientist and Venusian forces that just went along the ride to try to destroy the Jovian capital-station for unhindered access to the planet. The station was saved and the fleet was defeated by Jovian forces, but ensuing political tensions where pretty messy. Neither CEGA nor Venus felt responsible for the actions of a fleet that has supposedly gone rogue, Lunar and Mars were pissed because the wild goose chase caused the destruction of an entire colony and a fancy new orbital elevator respectively, and the head of covert operation was deemed a traitor because he ended up bringing an entire hostile fleet back home. Next Time: A look at the various nations of the solar system. Are Venusians really as dickish as I fear they are?!
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 21:17 |
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Nullkigan posted:In the history section does it just ignore the original developer campaign basically defining 90% of the setting (featuring, if I remember correctly, THE MAN THEY CALL RAMBO GARAND, "It's a Gundam!" and a multi-session trip in a slow haul freighter pretending to not be The Main Characters) or are you saving that for later on? A lot of the setting gets absolutely cringe worthy (you have three rival intelligence organisations with codenames based on the Greek version of the Norns?), but it's sort of interesting to excavate the roots and see how fan-fictiony they really are. I think that was the "Save the Doctor!" part, which sounds a lot like an adventure that the players escalated to glorious degrees of batshit.
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 22:06 |
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2024 07:46 |
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Nullkigan posted:I think they got around the problem of only one player having exo-piloting skills by having the others play temporary NPCs or even the main antagonist (who may or may not have been wearing a mask and may or may not have switched sides repeatedly until a final duel with a player pilot), which was pretty clever for the time, but I could just have inferred that as they never explicitly put together a play log. There was a Mekton campaign with only one mecha pilot? Now that's funky. And any potential play log involving Not-Char and a terrorist attack by Marsian anarchists (the space elevator bit wasn't entirely the Jovian dude's fault) is a play log that needs to be made. A shame we don't have this Replay culture like Japan.
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# ¿ Feb 1, 2015 08:45 |