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oriongates posted:51-70% At this point you can, with a successful Avatar roll, make Faustian Deals. Essentially you can facilitate the exchange (no giving, it must be an exchange of something) of things which are not normally tradable such as immaterial or spiritual exchanges or even material "goods" that can't normally change hands (such as youth, good looks or strength). Buying and selling souls is just the start. The only limit is that the bargain cannot involve magical or physical coercion (other forms of coercion such as blackmail are fine) and you must be up front about the terms. This includes your first Channel. And if you go around paying big money to regular homeless folks for ephemeral benefits, you'll be at huge risk of Waking the Tiger. Even if you're so tough the Sleepers can't touch you, it'll be bedlam when it goes public that Bill Gates or Donald Trump will never die. Granted, this doesn't really limit PCs much because in play terms it is a threat to end the campaign by GM ruling, but still.
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Jun 19, 2015 18:38
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Mr. Maltose posted:That's when you give a hobo a hundred bucks for his low profile. At which point the hobo loses it.. so suddenly becomes an incredibly well-known hobo, which will be pretty suspicious in itself. 
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Jun 19, 2015 19:47
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Yes, his 5e comments suggest that he somehow got seriously burned. And, oh god, I remember the 2e backstab. You had to be directly behind the opponent, in melee, and they had to have no idea you were there or that a fight was going on. This basically meant you hardly ever got it, and if you did get it and it didn't kill the enemy you were dead because you by definition had no support. And on the Rogue topic.. Hackmaster, 9: Sneaking and Skilling Hackmaster has 3 skill/stealth type character classes: the Rogue, the Thief, and the Assassin. The Thief is the Rogue type from most games - focusing on stealth and fast movement. Like fighters, they advance Attack and Initiative, but not Speed - so they move just as fast but don't get to use their weapon more quickly. They also have a unique bonus which allows them to shift their initative dice. So, for example, if it's a regular encounter and you'd roll a d12 initiative, a thief can drop this to a d10 (remember that lower is better). While this sounds OK to start with, it has the problem that it's cancelled out by wearing armor - anything heavier than the lightest armors will negate the benefit at all but the highest levels - and doesn't always offer a benefit anyway. And we have, oh look, Backstab. Any time the thief hits someone unaware of their presence with a dagger or knife, the dice roll "penetrates" (explodes) on one below the maximum as well. Which is better than it sounds given that the damage dice for these weapons are d4s, so they'll explode half the time. The thief also gets to do this if an opponent flees from combat with a thief, which is more concrete than the normal backstab rule, but still has the problem that it isn't going to happen all that much. Thieves also get a bonus to the frequency of a Near Perfect Defense (in other words, they can counter-attack when attacked more often) and can kill helpless foes in 3 seconds instead of 10. You can probably guess the weapon and armor proficiencies and specialization rules - daggers, knives, light armor, lots of bonuses for upgrading these, no bonuses or small penalties for doing anything else. Let's get on to something more interesting: luck. Every level, a thief gets Luck Points equal to their level plus 20. They aren't recovered until the thief levels up and they aren't carried over between levels. A luck point can increase or decrease the roll on the thief's saving throw by 1, subtract 5% from a skill roll (making it better, because skills are roll-under), or lower an opponent's attack or damage roll by 1. You can spend as many points as you like on a single roll. Notice that you can't use them to increase your own combat rolls, and the book states that this is because luck is supposed to represents your ability to get out of scrapes unharmed; this is presumably to avoid a situation where a thief character ends up depending on spending luck points to successfully attack and thus has a time limit for levelling enforced by their points running out. Thieves also get Core Skills, a mechanic that's shared across all three of the skill-based classes. It's basically just the 4e/5e skill choices: your class gives you a set of core skills; each level, you pick some number of them (four in the case of a thief), and get a free purchase in those four. That's additional to the BP you get for leveling and the ability to raise your skills by spending them. There's also the risk of rolling low on that danged Mastery die, and there's some limitation on that: when raising the thief skills, your modifier to the mastery die is capped at a minimum of +3. While a clever idea, this does have the slight problem that it potentially allows a low-level thief to minimize the attributes a thief would traditionally have and suffer no penalty to his skills for doing so. The Rogue is a con-man, essentially. Focused much more on Charisma and trickery than Dexterity and other badness. That said, they do get a lot of stuff from the Thief: they get the same bonus to initiative, a bonus to initiative dice (although it accrues more slowly than for the Thief), Backstab, and backstabbing of fleeing opponents. They also get luck points and core skills, although their core skills are different and they get 24 base luck points instead of 20. Unlike the thief, they don't get any weapon proficiencies and their weapon specializations are much more expensive (8 points each). They get a few unique things as well. First of all, they can Influence people. This is pretty much exactly the 4e Diplomacy skill, but as a class ability. If the Rogue can do something - talking, dancing, playing music, etc - that might affect an audience's attention, the audience (one person can be an audience) makes a Mental save and if they fail, their reaction level can be moved in either direction. If you're already in a fight and blood has been spilled, you can't talk opponents out of fighting, but you can make them angrier. Honestly, this rule is a bit of a mess. There's no indication as to what the target number for the Mental save is - it doesn't work for it to be a skill roll result, because those are percentile and saving throws are d20. Also, reaction levels aren't actually in the main book - they're in the GMG, and they don't have nice names as they do in 4e. Also, once someone's fighting you, there's no mechanical description of any lower levels; angering them further doesn't actually do anything. Actually, hey, have the Reaction table: 18-: Strangers avoid the character and draw weapons to drive them array. Authority figures seek to arrest. -13: Strangers avoid the character and prepare weapons but don't use them. Authority figures seek to stop, frisk and question. -8: NPCs verbally abuse the PCs, but if confronted by force make a morale check to avoid running away. -3: NPCs make a nasty comment and then ignore the PCs. +2: NPCs politely excuse themselves. +7: NPC politely listens and is inclined to help. +12: NPC listens and offers guidance or help proactively. +17: NPC becomes a friendly, casual acquaintance. 18+: NPC admires the PC and may become infatuated with them. So, see, there's going to be a problem in the middle there. If the NPC is verbally abusing the rogue, he can make a use of his Influence ability to.. have them ignore him. Or if they're already ignoring them, Influence makes them excuse themselves. Oops. I suspect this wasn't properly developed, which is a shame. Another weird mechanic is Knowledge. Here's how this is supposed to work: for any random topic, the Rogue can roll percentile against 3*their level, and if they roll under they know something about it. The GM then adds their level to 100, secretly rolls percentiles and subtracts, and the result read as a percentage is how correct/complete the information is. This ends up having the old problem if "a successful use can turn into a critical failure if the wrong information turns out to have negative consequences for everyone". And finally, Rogues get.. spells! Oh yea, 5e barding it up in here.. well, ok, they're nowhere near that powerful. In fact, they're a bit rubbish. They don't get any spells until level 3 and then they get one spell level every two levels (remember that in HackMaster there are 20 spell levels and Mages get a spell level every level). They can only learn one spell each level, and they don't actually learn them automatically - they have to find them on adventures, which is problematic, because if you find a scroll on an adventure who are you going to give it to, the dabbler Rogue or the Mage? So the only way they'll get a spell is if the Mage already has it, which probably limits their utility a bit. Rogues cast like mages - including casting time and spell fatigue, which lasts longer for Rogues - but they don't have to study and can only cast a given spell once in 24 hours. The GM's guide has a whole section on how you can roll to see what happens if the rogue does cast a spell more than once in 24 hours, which usually means a wodge of physical damage, an epileptic fit, potential lost points of intelligence, and potential loss of that spell or all spells. So, let's face it, the player isn't going to do it. I have no idea why you'd ever even use this rules unless you don't have a Mage in the party. Finally, the Assassin. As you'd expect, this is the combat-heavy rogue. They have the same advanced statistics - attack, initiative, and initiative die, although their initiative die advancement is the slowest of all - and they also advance weapon speed, much much more slowly than a fighter. They get fighter-style armor and shield proficiencies and discounted proficiency costs, and also get relatively cheap specializations at 5/6 points. They also get the Backstab, backstab fleeing, and rear strike abilities that everyone's had so far, and an even quicker coup-de-grace (2 seconds). And, they get Core Skills and the +3 minimum cap on the mastery die modifier. They only have one special ability, but it's an interesting one: they're good at hitting to inflict maximum damage in a single blow. They deduct half their level rounded up from the opponent's TOP threshold. If the TOP save is missed by 5, the enemy is silenced as well as knocked down; at 10, they are unconscious instead of just stunned; and at 15, they are knocked to 0hp and bleeding out. The TOP threshold reduction is essentially a damage bonus which is only applied for TOP purposes, which is interesting as it becomes quite a significant bonus at higher levels. Next time, we'll get to mop up a few more of the fighting-type classes, including the whole 2! Prestige classes that are in the game.
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Jun 23, 2015 16:00
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The problem with "Caster Supremacy" is that it comes in some many forms: a) Equivalency supremacy: the MU can fight as well as the fighter, plus do magic as well. 3e Druids we're looking at you. Clerics too. b) Defense supremacy: the MU can by magic make themselves immune to combat, but the fighter cannot by combat make himself immune to magic. c) System abstraction supremacy: the MU has spells that in the rules text have certain effects, everyone else has skills that in the rules text have those same effects but require rolls. This is the most common problem with Rogues. d) Narrative supremacy: at high level the MU can cast a spell to summon a mighty thunderstorm around the enemy fortress; the fighter can swing a sword really well. e) Game experience supremacy: the MU player gets to pick and choose spells for every situation; the fighter player gets to basic attack every round.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:28
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Yea I really can't think of an RPG that works well if your party can take a nice leisurely nap every couple encounters when in 'adventure mode' Honestly, resting isn't the problem. The problem is that while the spell limits on casters might deal with equivalency supremacy and possibly play experience supremacy, they do nothing for defense supremacy. In other words, while it might seem fair that the fighter can carry on hacking away when the wizard is tapped out, it only takes an enemy wizard to show up with the fly/protection from arrows combo and it's over. Guess what every sensible enemy wizard is going to have? That makes it DM-chicken again: "We have expended our spells; either you let us recover them, or engineer things so that we do not need them, or you are killing us (or forcing retreat which will just means this choice comes up again later) as a foregone conclusion." It also does nothing for narrative supremacy: "when we're out of combat, Bob Fighter talks to some people in town, and Jim Wizard casts Control Weather, brings prosperity to the town's crops for a season and is lauded as a hero."
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Jun 29, 2015 17:18
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fool_of_sound posted:I don't really want to restart the argument, but going to issue a correction here: Almost all spell buffs are mutually exclusive in 5e. You can't have both Fly and any sort of arrow protection up at the same time. They also can all be disrupted by damage. That's why you Conjure Woodland Creature, get a bunch of pixies, and tell them to cast buffs on you and concentrate on them, then go hide (since range is only checked at cast time). Maybe this should have been on Murphys.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:43
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FMguru posted:The guy who runs and funds The New Inquisition seems to be a failed Avatar. He's not so much a failed Avatar as a failed new Archetype - the Inquisition books mentions that he believed that the Naked Goddess's ascension blocked his own; that if she had not ascended as The Woman Everyone Can Have But You, he would have done so as The Man Who Succeeded Where You Could Have.
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Jul 3, 2015 18:42
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey theironjef, I'm halfway through the Noumenon episode and I just wanted you to know: I definitely saw this book in print. I have a print copy. It definitely existed and went through distributors. It's the same publisher as Heaven And Earth, another System Mastery ep..
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Jul 7, 2015 18:45
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Hackmaster, 10: No, I didn't abandon it Back after a bunch of extra hassle and pulling my PC to bits, we are back to look at the remaining fighting classes, and at the one and only one prestige class chain. The Barbarian in Hackmaster is rather unusual. Unlike every other Barbarian, they can't Rage. But they do still have a d12 hit dice, so there's that for grognards. Essentially, their distinction compared to fighters is that they're really good at learning multiple weapons, but really bad at formally training in them. They can learn new weapons at half cost, and suffer half the penalty when using a weapon they're not proficient with, but their costs for specializations escalate exponentially. Their first level is the same as the fighter, 5BP, but it at least doubles on every level after that. They get a better range of starting Talents and Skills, but at the same time they suffer penalties on social skills, Literacy, and cannot choose the formal training option when they level up. They also get bonuses to saves against magic.. but they get a built in Magic phobia which forces a morale check at -2 whenever they encounter magic or a magical creature. On a failure, the Barbarian runs and cowers until they see evidence of someone else hurting/killing the creature with regular weapons. Once one is killed, the check goes to -1, and once two are killed it is eliminated - for that particular creature. They also distrust Wizard spells and won't allow them to be cast upon them - but they do believe in the Gods, and will allow a Cleric of the same religion as them to cast spells on them. A Cleric of a different religion is even worse. So, yea. Barbarians. They're big sacks of hit points and apart from that they're.. kinda poor. I'm not at all sure why you'd play one instead of a Fighter. Rangers combine an attack/speed/initiative progression similar to the Fighter's with an initiative die progression similar to the Rogue's. They also get a different speed bonus with ranged weapons to with melee weapons; the ranged bonus is better, but the melee one is still pretty good, meaning you're not stuck being an archer forever and being lost as soon as you go into a dungeon. Their weapon proficiencies are half cost and specializations cost 6BP - only one worse than the fighter - but bows and throw weapons come down to only 4BP. They gain a whole bunch of wilderness-related skills at half BP cost. At higher levels they get a rather odd ability - Supernatural Affinity, which gives them 20 spell points, but no spells to cast with them. The idea is that they can use magic items made for Mages that might require the use of Spell Points to activate. Rangers also suffer from Fatigue more slowly than other fighting classes, as long as they don't wear heavy armor. We haven't mentioned a whole lot about Fatigue yet - it's an optional rule. Any time a character is in a fight, they're in danger of being Fatigued, especially if they take hits (because that hurts). You're immune to fatigue in your first fight of each day, and also in the first 10 seconds of any given fight, and when Surprised. After that, you need to calculate your Fatigue Factor, which is based on Wisdom, Constitution, the armor you wear, your class (fighters and rangers do better), your encumbrance, and how wounded you are. Any time you roll under that on defense, you start to feel fatigue, and suffer a penalty of -1 to attack and defense and +1 to speed. Every subsequent roll under your Fatigue Factor doubles this penalty, and it goes away once you rest for 5 minutes. This is a pretty major difference to be in an optional rule, and it's yet another thing you need to track during fights - or, at least, fights that are anything other than kerb-stomps. And finally, the two prestige classes - which are both exclusive to Human Fighters. Knight, and Paladin. Becoming a Paladin requires being a Knight first, but you don't have to go through the whole chain; you can stay a Knight until level 20 if you like. To be a Knight, you have to be a 5th level fighter with appropriate skills for a knight - Etiquette, Riding, Diplomacy, Recruiting, and Resist Persuasion. You must also have proficiency - but not necessarily specialization - in knightly weapons: the lance (no choice about this one), at least one melee weapon, and at least one mounted weapon. Finally, you must actually go find a king or knightly order and join it. Once you're a Knight you continue progressing in pretty much the same way a fighter did, although specializing in your knightly weapons is now even cheaper, and you get 3 automatic points in the appropriate skills each level - that's a better deal than even the Rogue gets, although 3 percentile points isn't all that much. You also get the same 3 points in the Religion skill, because Knights are always faithful; if you don't have Religion, you get it. Knights are expected to be in Average Honor at all times, to not attack honorable foes in the back or with ranged weapons, and to wear platemail - chainmail is acceptable but results in a loss of Honor since it is improper for their station. The main bonus for this is that the default attitude for anyone interacting with you is deferent, and ranking members of society will often take you in for free. Your hit dice goes up to a d12, tying the barbarian, and you give all your allies within 10' a +4 bonus to morale and to saving throws. Finally, you get Chivalry Points, which are a bit like the Rogue's Luck Points, except they're only usable for Combat and you're expected to use them at "epic moments". The Knight gets 10+level each level, they don't carry over, and they're expected to be in Great Honour to get them at all. A Paladin is an upgraded Knight; to get it, you have to be a Level 11 Knight - but you also have to serve a religious order with a Lawful Good god, and to have learned that God's preferred weapon. Essentially, it gives you all the same bonuses as being a Knight (but not the chivalry points) plus some Cleric-style religious benefits. You radiate a holy aura which gives a -2 penalty for evil creatures to attack you, you can lay on hands to heal (although only 1 points/level), you're immune to disease, and can turn undead. You can also eventually cast cleric spells, although I'm not sure if someone wasn't smirking when they wrote the sentence "An 18th level Paladin casts spells as a 1st level Cleric." Before we leave the topic of fighting men, we should talk about that little paragraph that exists at the end of pretty much every character class: the ability to attract followers. Hackmaster actually has rules for this. There are no explicit levels at which followers show up; it's based on your Fame, which will tend to increase with your Honor. Once you're famous enough, your character can announce they're searching for henchmen, and your fame gives a percentile chance for them to show up. The GM is supposed to create 2-3 zero or first-level NPCs via standard character generation, with most choices made randomly but with an eye to ensuring the character is playable and of similar alignment to the PC. The PC is then supposed to play out an interview with the potential henchman, and if they are accepted, they join the party as a second playable character for that PC. Of course, the henchman is allowed to oversell himself in the interview, and if the PC doesn't like what they see on the character sheet they are allowed to fire them immediately.. but at the cost of lowering their honor and making it harder to attract more. The total number of henchmen you can even have is limited based on your Charisma store, so this also uses up one of those slots. Proteges are a special case of henchmen, and a rule clearly lifted from the pages of KoDT, but quite an interesting one. Essentially, you can take on an NPC as your protege and transfer experience points to them, provided you visit them regularly and train them. They don't have to be the same class as you, as pretty much any class has something to teach another. You can also give your protege loot if you want to, although you aren't guaranteed to get it back on demand. When your PC dies, or you just want to play someone else, you can "activate your protege" and take them over as your player character, at whatever level they reached as a result of your experience point donations. While it sounds fun, it feels a bit like something which ends up doing something that the GM was probably going to do informally anyway, but at a much larger cost. Next up, multiclassing: or rather, the multiclasses.
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Jul 11, 2015 23:03
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I really wondered how System Mastery would approach HoL given its general lack of a system. I was a bit surprised you didn't get into the weirdness of the Anguish system which doesn't really seem to have a reason to be there at all, but then probably nothing does. There are a few bits of HoL I found really funny but also some bits that are just unnecessary and stupid, Brother Aristotle Studbasket amongst those (the even stupider thing is that his text suggests he's supposed to be an antagonist for Led Pighp, which makes a certain amount of sense, except that he should be an NPC in that case and Led can kill him in one shot) The character generation is entirely random and is a parody of Lifepath systems so it probably wouldn't have been that interesting. The one bit of input you do get is your totem animal, but unfortunately the one mentioned in the podcast isn't on the list.. There's nothing else in the supplement except a bunch more weapons and armour, a weird obsession with clowns, and a bit more about the Swamp. I don't remember finding Eugene that insulting, but maybe my being-insulted defences were increased more recently by The Magicians (the original, not the the-publisher-didn't-get-the-joke-either sequels)
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Jul 23, 2015 10:29
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gradenko_2000 posted:It almost feels like the book was written with equal parts contempt for its players and the Scary-Movie school of "a thing happened" referential gags, and I'm sorry you had to suffer through that. When I read it, it came across not so much as contemptuous of players - although that does appear sometimes - as representing a bitter player's contempt at the RPG experience, that is, the combination of the system and GM. The stuff about "the GM just cheats so it doesn't matter", "ranges are completely vague", "everyone's a vile villain" all just suggest that. Oh, and Mmrhmhm is presumably meant to be the guy who makes a big tank fighter and doesn't role-play at all. He's a "nice guy" because that's the default personality they tend to have.
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Jul 23, 2015 10:47
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Hackmaster, 11: My name is irrelevant for my classes are many I am hard-pressed to think of a single fantasy game in which multiclassing isn't either a universally bad idea, or a broken mechanic giving ridiculous results. This especially applies to the various flavors of D&D. 2e had the silly multiclassing which made you advance more slowly at everything than anyone else in the party and made you useless in short order, plus the bizarre dual classing which kicked you back to 1st level in the middle of a campaign (!) until you caught up and suddenly were good at everything again. 3e had the strictly level-slot based multiclassing which resulted in silly front-loaded combinations, 4e had pit fighting clerics, and 5e brings back front-loading again with extra abusability by spellcasting classes. Hackmaster doesn't technically have multiclassing. It has blended classes, each of which combines two of the other classes together. They're selected at character generation just like any other class, and there's no awkward XP penalties or anything complicated like that. We start with the Fighter/Mage. As you'd expect, they get an attack bonus that's halfway between the Mage and the Fighter, the same as a bonus to saves vs spells, and slightly worse Speed and Initative modifiers. They start with some weapon proficiencies and can buy them slightly cheaper than a Mage does (but for more than a Fighter does). Their spell progression is interesting: they get their initial spells quite quickly at the first three levels, but then slow down to half speed, meaning they only ever get up to level 10 spells (whereas in Hackmaster the Mage would go all the way up to level 20). They have spell points in the same way as a regular mage, and can use them in all the same ways, but they have less of them. In what I can only presume is an attempt at trolling, they also have a huge bunch of starting Armor Proficiencies, including Heavy Armor.. and the proviso that they can't cast spells while wearing any of it. Or at least, so it looks from the Player's Guide: the Dungeon Master's Guide shows it isn't actually anywhere near as bad as that. There's only a chance of a mishap, and Fighter/Mages get a substantially reduced chance of it happening, with even less if they're an Elf. So, um, Elves, I guess. Nothing else helps, not even Intelligence, which normally resists spell mishaps. So nobody with any sense is ever going to use that Heavy Armor proficiency, though: you'll get a spell mishap on a roll of less than 12 on a d20, or 14 if you committed the sin of not being an elf. Oh, and while you're enjoying not wearing armor, remember that your Hit Dice is worse than a Fighter's, too, although slightly better than a Mage's (actually, you alternate hit dice every 2 levels. First you get a d8, then a d6, and they swap back and forth.) So, yea.. typical not-really-very-good Fighter/Mage crossover, really. Loses a lot of the value of fighting and their spellcasting will get less and less useful over time. It's not quite as bad in Hackmaster as it is in some fantasy games (although they stop at level 10 spells, they still get more and more spell points, which can be used to scale up the lower level spell effects), but the general golden rule of "never splash casting" still holds. The Fighter/Thief I'll deal with quickly, because it's kind of boring. They get very close to the Fighter's initial proficiencies but give up progression in their attack statistics, in exchange for the thief's Core Skill mechanic which gives a limited number of free advances ever level, and luck points. Unfortunately, trading off for skills is a really bad idea because of the Mastery Die system where unlucky/lucky rolls can give you massive skill advantages even if you got a lower number of rolls. The Mage/Thief, however, has a few more interesting properties. Their attack bonus is terrible, but they get the same Saving Throw vs Spell bonus as the Fighter/Mage, plus a slower version of the Rogue's initiative bonus progression, and the Fighter/Mage's spell and spell point progression. Since they aren't expected to fight and Thieves wouldn't normally be tanks, they aren't so subject to problems with armor - especially since they can cast Illusory Leather Armor and have a temporary armor DR with no penalties to sneaking or spellcasting. Also, they do get both Core Skills and Luck. Their Core Skills are still only thief-type skills, but they do have access to the Arcane Lore skill and their Luck Points can be repurposed to give bonuses to magic skills such as learning spells (although not actual spellcasting). This means they're quite good for winning initiative and blasting. Using spells for stealth might not be quite as useful - Invisibility is a 6th level spell, which means the blended class doesn't get it until level 12, but Inaudibility is only 3rd level, and makes sneaking much more viable without destroying the value of the skill. So, the Mage/Thief is by far the most functional of the multiclasses, but ultimately they're likely to have the same problem as multiclasses have in most games: you're probably in a party, the party probably has been designed to cover all the bases, covering two bases with one character doesn't really give much of an advantage. So, we've now seen most of the standard rules, and assuming we don't want to get into rather boring and tedious lists of character options, the next step is to look at some of the lighter guidance material in the GMG, some of which is actually really good.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:55
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Hackmaster, 12: Spelling with the Alphabet Rather than going right on to the GMG as I had considered, it strikes me that there is actually one list of stuff that might be interesting: the list of spells. They're unusual for both the effects available and for the effects not available, and some are obviously jokes, whereas some are remarkably useful. We'll go through mage spells first, mainly because unlike Cleric spells, they're universal; a mage can get any of these spells, although there's random factors involved in learning them. Apprentice Amplify Illumination: Makes a torch's radius 50% greater (or more, if amped up) without making it consume any more fuel. Only works on combustion-based light sources, so no stacking with magical light. Aura of Innocence: For 5 minutes or more, the target can't be associated with any crime, no matter the evidence. Direct eyewitnesses can make a Mental save, otherwise they're not suspected even then. After the duration, though, people can recall the truth and notice that their judgment was interfered with. Hope you're gone. Buoyancy: Makes a target, animate or otherwise, float on water. If it's already submerged, it rises to the top. If it's a living creature that would rather not rise to the top, it can make a physical save. Feat of Strength: Lets the target perform one action as if they had 18/00 Strength. They have one minute to do it and it only works for one thing - a single attack or something like lifting a gate or breaking down a door. Uh-oh. It's a "let's let the mage eliminate their class weakness" spell. Fire Finger: Shoots a 5 foot beam of flame which automatically hits, does 1d3p+2 damage, and can set flammable garments on fire. Illusory Mural: Creates an illusion of a flat surface with an image on it. If viewed from the side, it becomes obvious it's an illusion; if viewed from the front, the target can use their Painting skill (!) to add perspective to the image to make it convincing and affect the Mental save. Jolt: We've mentioned this one before: touch a target and if they fail a physical save, they get a static shock and drop anything they're carrying. Permanent Mark: Dip your finger in some ink and write on a surface with it, and nothing can remove the writing except detaching that part of the surface. If covered up by other paint, the image continues to be visible as magical radiance; you can amp this up to also turn the ink invisible, so that the message is secret and only seen by magical detection. Phantom Irritation: If they fail a mental save, the target is convinced something is itching at them, and takes -2 to attack rolls. Repair: The typical Mend spell. Repel: The typical Push spell which moves objects around by amounts depending on their size. The general rule is that a 100 pound object moves 1 foot and the two value continue in inverse proportion, but the book also mentions that if you want ridiculous detail, you can assume it inflicts 450 Newtons of force and go do your vector mechanics. Springing: The "jump really high" spell. 10 foot standing, 20 foot forward, 30 foot with a run-up. Journeyman Audible Clamor: The audio illusion spell. Up to 90' away, any sound you've heard, and you only need to concentrate on it if the sound is complex and continuously changing (like conversation or music). Aura of Protection: Oh look, it's Protection from Evil, but for mages. Target is surrounded with a barrier through which supernatural evil creatures cannot pass physically, and gives a penalty to their ranged attacks and spells. However, the target also can't attack such a creature or cast harmful spells on it, and doing so ends the spell. Bar Portal: Slams a door shut and holds it shut, requiring a Feat of Strength (the action type, not specifically the spell) to open. Candlelight: Makes a little magical light with a 15' radius. You can't move it freely, but you can cast it on the end of an object so it moves with the object. Enrage: Target makes a saving throw or rushes at the caster to attack him (or anyone protecting him) in melee, using ranged weapons only if unable to due to an obstacle. The components are "rude words, rude gestures, and a bit of snot or phlegm". Freeze Water: Does this that. Freezes a cubic foot of water over a period of a minute. Once frozen, physics comes back into play, so the water can melt if the ambient temperature would cause it to. Can also freeze other liquids that contain water, "especially daquiris". Perimeter Alarm: Creates a 10' invisible hemisphere which, if contacted, sets off a loud alarm waking everyone in a 300' radius. The caster can choose a password to allow someone to pass through, but otherwise the spell can't discriminate, and extremely small creatures (less than 3' in height) don't set the alarm off (so I guess you could get away with a snake). I really hate this classic Heartbreaker spell, because it completely screws over rogues - although at least the password aspect makes it better than the D&D 5e version where you can just name specific individuals, making it utterly impossible to foil the spell in any way. No, I'm not bitter, why would you ask? Remote Audio Link: Lets the caster communicate with someone if they move up to 200' away for 5 minutes, unaffected by obstacles in the way or surrounding noise. The caster can also, at the cost of concentration taking up their actions, turn themselves into an access point and connect multiple other people together in the same way. Sense Magical Aura: Detect Magic. Detects the power of magic effects, and you can spend extra spell points for a chance of working out the type of magic, although it's expensive (100 SP per 10% chance) Tireless Run: Lets the target creature run for 4 hours without suffering tiredness, then they collpase in a heap. The material component is "a tonic of water, fruit juice, and ground ginger". Virtual Mount: Mount, only instead of summoning an actual horse, it creates a magical force that looks and acts like one, but is emotionless. Yudder's Whistle of Hell's Gate: Blow a dog whistle, and it acts.. like a dog whistle, only on every kind of animal, dire animal, or dog/wolf monster variant. They make mental saves or run away. First Level Bash Door: Instantly smashes open any door that isn't Wizard Locked. Sucks to be you, Feat of Strength guy. Bird's Eye View: Toss a bird's eye into the air and you can spend up to an hour looking down on yourself and the surrounding area from 100' above. You are still actually there, only your vision moves. Your vision can still be obstructed and doesn't become any clearer, so it can be hard to see detail. Also, if the mage is afraid of heights, this triggers a trauma check. Doze: Oh look, it's Sleep from D&D. The "affects a HP total" version. But with a major nerf: if the target isn't in a resting position - in other words if it collapses to the ground - it wakes itself and suffers temporary disorientation instead. Magic Shield: Gives you a shield which acts like a regular medium shield except it can only take up to 18 points of damage, can't be destroyed, and gives no encumbrance or spell mishap chance. The only snag is, it only lasts 1 minute unless you spend SP to lengthen it, but still, this is a pretty good boon, especially for blended mages. Pepper Spray: Acts like, well, pepper spray. Creates a stream of liquid from your finger which you can shoot into an enemy's eyes to give them major attack and defense penalties for 5d4p seconds. Planar Servant: A ghostly servant appears and does what you tell it. It can't do anything sophisticated or fight and has low strength, and leaves instantly if gets hit. Scorch: The basic low level fireball. Throw a 10' radius fireball next to you which inflicts 1d3p+6 damage and sets flammable clothing on fire. Shift Blame: When there's some act that's making people angry, point at someone else, say they did it, and spend the material component (a dab of tar and a feather) and everyone who doesn't make a save blames them. Even after the spell ends, it will probably take compelling evidence to make people change their minds about who did it, because people are like that. Straight out of KoDT, but actually kind of nifty anyway. Shrink: Another D&D staple. It does pretty much the same as shrinking does in every other Heartbreaker. Throw Voice: Makes your voice seem to come from somewhere else. Realizing it's really you speaking requires a mental save with a difficulty based on how reasonable it is that your voice is coming from the other direction. Translate: It's Comprehend Languages. Next. Wall Walk: It's Spider Climb, except the caster climbs, I quote: "with feet flat on the wall and his body horizontal to the ground, ala Adam West's Batman." Next. Second Level Charm: Yes, it's charm, but the target only gets a save every 21 days, minus a number of days equal to their intelligence. It also emphasis that "although the charmed individual believes the caster to be a dear friend, he is not his bitch". Chilling Touch: Touch attack the opponent and they have to make a save or take 1d4 damage and lose a point of Strength. Conjure Warrior Avatar: The caster collapses and a warrior of the mage's race appears, under the mage's control. Its combat abilities are high but not over-the-top for the level (attack is +2), and it will disappear if it hasn't fought anything in 30 seconds. Disguise: It's Disguise Self. Frighten: It's Fear, although it's specific about what the fear is: the target believes that the caster is whatever they're most scared of and that it's chasing them. The caster has to move towards the target for 1' to start the spell, then the illusion takes over. Illusory Leather Armor: We mentioned this earlier. It's like Magic Shield, but it's leather armor, and it's weaker - it can only absorb 10 points of damage; also, you can't wear other armor at the same time, so it's a boon for blended classes. Magic Projectile: Oh, I wonder what spell this is. But being level 2 instead of level 1/cantrip, you can spend extra SP for extra missiles, on the same target or another, and ignore all damage reduction. Perspecillium: look through any sort of hollow tube and it becomes a 50x effective distance scope. Shocking Touch: Touch someone for 1d8p damage. The somatic component is to "walk in place dragging your feet along the floor". Slippery Surface: It's Grease, but with slightly nastier save requirements. Smoke Screen: It's Obscuring Mist but with a greater choice of what shape it is. Torchlight: Like Candlelight, but the light is equivalent to a torch instead of a candle. Third Level Bedazzle: create a cone of light which blinds creatures, behaving based on hit points totals in the same way Sleep does. Cheetah Speed: lets a creature move three times the speed and apply -2 to initiative, but nothing else they do becomes faster. Flaming Missiles: touch up to 5 ordinary physical missiles in the following minute and they catch fire, dealing an extra 1d3p damage and settings things on fire. If not fired the missile consumes itself in 10 seconds and small ammo can't be handled while it's burning, so ordinary arrows need to already be loaded. Ice Knife: conjure a knife to throw or use in melee which deals Cold damage. If thrown into a solid object, it explodes into a shower of ice which delivers a 5' radius AOE attack. If thrown directly at an enemy it deals extra damage to then and then explodes in the same way. You can use it as a melee weapon if you want, but then you'll be in range when it explodes unless you get rid of it. And you need to be wearing leather gloves or holding the knife chills your hands. Pyrotechnic Display: Cast on an open fire to either produce a shower of blinding sparks or a plume of smoke which blocks view and chokes opponents. Rope Charm. It's Rope Trick. Lalala. Unlock: Spend 30 silver pieces making a key and 70 spell points to make target thief redundant. Veil of Darkness: It's Darkness. White Hot Metal: It's Heat Metal. Withstand Fire: Gives resistance to fire, although it's an awkward one; a total DR of 6 that refreshes only every 10 seconds. Possibly a lot of extra bookkeeping involved. Wizard's Lock: Spend 70 spell points to make target enemy thief useless. As with Perimeter Alarm, you must use a password if you want anyone other than yourself to be able to open it. Fourth Level Bottomless Pouch: Cast on a regular pouch and it gains a capacity of 5 cubic feet and weighs only 10% of what it's supposed to. Items must still fit into the throat of the pouch and the spell has to be refreshed every 12 hours or the stored items reappear normally inside the pouch and tear it to bits. Enfeeble: Drops an opponent to Strength 3/01 if they fail a dodge save. Fracture Object: Cracks an object so that it breaks the next time it is used or otherwise relevant. It can only be an object up to 10 pounds and not magical, so it won't work on suits of armor, although it can work on potion vials (ouch!). Light Sleep: A more powerful version of Doze. Magic Projectile of Skewering: Another spell straight out of KoDT (although KoDT got away with referring to "magic missile"). It's like a regular magic missile except it blasts through enemies, with an optional turn of up to 45 degrees each time it hits someone. Lesser Memory Wipe: Everyone in a 20' cube must make a mental save or forget the last minute. Spells are not cancelled, but casters can forget that the spell is active and not take advantage of it. Motion Blur: It's Blur from D&D, except it only works if the defender is actually moving on their own. Prerecorded Audio Message: Leave an audio message attached to any object which is activated by an event of your choice at the time you cast it. The event can be programmed to almost any complexity and the message can be any noise you can make; you can include others if you want to. Reveal Secret Portal: It's the spell that detects secret doors. Skipping Betty Fireball: A 2' fireball which bounces along the ground, 20-30 feet between each bounce. It can't bounce a shorter range than that, so it won't work on targets that are on the ground nearby. The caster can choose the bounce distance between 20-30 metres and turn the fireball by 45' a second. Unfortunately, if the ball hits a wall, it bounces off and starts gimbaling, meaning the mage can no longer control it and it'll continue based on pure uncaring physics. The default duration is 10 skips. Ow. Shadowskin: Turns the target into a shadowy black shape which can easily hide in the dark. Transmogrify: It's Polymorph Self. The mage keeps their own Strength and Hit Points, but can use the new form's attack routines. Also, in one of the more sadistic changes, the GM rolls the duration of the spell randomly (3d4p+6 minutes) and the mage is stuck with it - the spell can't be ended early. Fifth Level Copycat: It's Mirror Image. Disembodied Floating Hand: Mage Hand with a twist - the mage's actual physical hand detaches! This does mean it doesn't require concentration to move the hand around, because it still acts like it's connected. Damaging the hand affects the caster's HP but does not automatically mutilate the hand: if the hand can't be reattached within 5 minutes afterwards then, well, you've lost your hand. Entrancing Lightshow: It's Hypnotic Pattern except to use it you have to spin a "small mirrored ball" and the saving throw becomes stronger if you have a musician playing at the same time. Heat Seeking Fist of Thunder: Zooms towards the nearest heat source (which must be at least as large as a torch) and does damage in a 20' area, also destroying the heat source. Levitation: Same as every other levitation spell. Massive Smoke Screen: A more powerful version of, well, you can guess. Munz's Bolt of Acid: Surprisingly, this is not just Melf's Acid Arrow. You have to cast it on an actual crossbow bolt and if it hits, the target actually has a wound impregnated with strong acid, dealing 2d4p extra damage and then d4p every 5 seconds, counted as a single worsening wound for massive damage calculations. Panic: It's another fear variant: everyone nearby saves or runs away, or takes -2 if forced to fight. Sense Invisible Beings: It's See Invisible but it only works for creatures. It doesn't actually grant sight, just a psychic sense of where things are, and it doesn't require magical invisibility - so someone hiding in the darkness is also detected. Target rogue throws target book against target wall. Summoning 1: Basically a joke. Summon a "small, innocuous animal" which you have no control over. The material component is.. a black top hat. Yup. Higher levels to come!
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Aug 15, 2015 21:36
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Hackmaster, 13: Higher power spells Sixth Level Boost Strength: Gives the target d6 extra strength for 3 hours. Find Item: Gives the crow-flies direction that a particular object is in, provided the mage has an image of it. Only works on objects rather than people, but you can find a person by finding their clothes. Beardy. Flame Ball: Like Flaming Sphere from D&D, but you have to provide a lump of coal to act as the core. Dumping water on it immediately puts it out. Immunity to Apprentice Magic: As the name applies, makes the target immune to Apprentice level spells and allows them to dismiss ongoing enchantments with an opposed check. Inflict Temporary Blindness: Typical blindness spell, but with a note that the condition inflicted is psychosomatic (ie, the target's eyes still work, their brain just can't process the result) meaning that it can't be healed in the normal way. Invisibility: Classic D&D Invisibility which is ended by an attack or spell. Mind Reading: Listen in to a single target's thoughts. You can spend some time at the start of the spell sweeping for the correct target in a group, but can only listen properly to one target's thoughts at a time. The description does mention that most intelligent creatures know about this and will realize what it is ("Why is that dude just staring at me? Oh s#^! Pink Elephants! Pink Elephants!") Stink Bomb: It's Stinking Cloud except you set it off by throwing a tiny pellet which triggers the cloud where it strikes a solid object. Oh, and the material component is the caster's faeces. Mmm. Telepathic Mute: Disables all telepathy or mental command/control abilities of the target if they fail a save, including incidental mental control granted by spells. Nice idea. Viscous Webbing: Hey, it's Web. Seventh Level Bash Face: Lets the mage smash a target in the face remotely for 4d6p damage, but requiring a regular attack roll - but bypassing any shield. Clairnosmia: Ha ha, it's like Clairvoyance except it's for scent instead of vision. It doesn't make your sense of smell any better, so I suspect this won't be useful. Conjure Warrior Avatar 2: Like the original Conjure Warrior Avatar, but it's a bit more powerful - although, thank goodness, not as powerful as a fighter PC of the same level. Cutaneous Aspiration: Um, yea. Ok, so this is really meant for breathing water. It makes your skin gas-permeable, so you can breathe by absorbing oxygen in water through your skin. Unfortunately, it also gives you a whopping penalty to saves against dangerous gasses. You can cast this on an unwilling target, but they get a physical save. Grounding: Stick a copper rod in the ground and it becomes a perfect earth, negating any electrical effects in the area for a limited time. Icy Blast: Hey, Cone of Cold. Missed you. Induce Fratricide: If target fails a save, it spends the spell's duration whaling on the nearest living creature of any kind in melee with the Aggressive Attack move. So, hmm. Kinda like Insanity but without the uncertainty. Induce Nervousness: If the targets fail a save, they get knocked back to Nervous level morale. This is a common thing with Hackmaster and Kenzer stuff in general: if there's a mechanic in standard use they'll make stuff that affects it. KoDT's monster add-ons for Hackmaster featured monsters whose attacks were to eat the PC's provisions or destroy their dungeon map. Low Light Vision: Gives anyone low light vision, like a dwarf. Whattya want? Retard Reaction: Slow, but nastier because it ties into the Hackmaster second-based timing system. Everything takes 3 extra seconds to perform. Ouch. Eight Level Clairaudience: Aha, a useful remote spell. Lets you hear things in a remote location. Exploding Script: Yea, I bet that script is written in runes, too. Force Fumbles: For the duration of a spell, any time the target misses an attack, it's a critical fumble with a +200 on the fumble result table. Force Grenade: Throw a stone at a solid object, and when it hits, it explodes for 4d6p damage in a 10' radius which can be dodged for half. If not thrown within 30 seconds, it goes off in the mage's hand. Illumination: Even better than Torchlight. Paralysis: It's Hold X except it's based on hit point totals rather than type of creature. Also, the effect is permanent after a single saving throw. Ouch. Phantom Horse: A bit like Virtual Mount, but the horse can only be ridden by one person (you or someone you name), and the ghostly horse scares away other horses and typical wild predators. You can also spend extra SP to give the horse the ability to walk through mud unimpeded or, for even more, walk on water. Nifty. Polylingualism: Like Comprehend Languages but lets you hear and talk in the target language, provided you've heard it spoken. Again, nifty. Surprised this hasn't appeared in more games. Skin of Stone: Oh, come on, they're not even trying now. Sure Grip Snare: Touch an object and name the people who are allowed to touch it. If anyone else touches it, they must make a dodge saving throw or be snatched up and held upside down five foot off the ground for 60 seconds. Even if they pass their save, they're disoriented for 10 seconds. So, again, let's continue screwing over thieves by creating traps which they can't do anything about because they're maaaagic (tm) Ninth Level Clairoptikos: Lets you see remotely. Usual effects, except it does mention that the mage's sight is no better than it normally is (they can't see in the dark), but at the same time there's no physical transmission of gaze effects to the mage (so they can't be harmed by seeing a medusa, or by staring into the sun) Hasten: Remove the n. Speeds everything up, but rather nasty in that it doesn't help wizards: not only is casting spells not any faster (because it still needs to be done precisely and your thinking doesn't speed up) but wizards under the spell actually have to make a Wisdom check in order to cast properly. Also, afterwards, everyone suffers fatigue. Infravision: Another heartbreaker classic - and yes, it's actual infrared vision, with temperature dependance and all. Lightning Bolt: Almost straight out of D&D; fire a lightning bolt hitting anything in the area for 6d6p points of damage. If it hits a wooden door or wall, it destroys it, but the bolt ends there; if it hits a stone wall, it ricochets. Polymorph to Primate: Turns the target into a random kind of primate based on a table (the list is: "Ring-tailed lemur, baboon, orangutan, spider monkey, howler monkey, gibbon, or tarpier"). Primates can still attack although not all can use weapons (Orangutans can, and actually get a Strength bonus, so this is a risky business) and creatures retain their intelligence and memories, so can still cast spells with a 75% failure chance. The exception is that the last entry on the list, not counted above, is "monkey brain" which leaves the target's body the same but lowers their intelligence to 5/01. Preemptive Retribution: Ha ha. If any enemy intending to hurt the mage comes within 5', they get an electric shock for 3d6p damage, with no save. However, it only works once. Summoning 2: The first sensible summoning spell. Summon 2d4 creatures of EP value less than 67 and control them mentally as you wish. Resist Fire: Gives 12 points of damage reduction per 10 seconds against Fire. That's going to be fun to track. Tenth Level Clairvoyance: Ah, finally, but it's not the same as seeing a remote location. Instead, it just gives you information about whatever you target, obtained from unknown supernatural sources. Conjure Warrior Avatar 3: Better still. In fact, getting worryingly good at this point. Dismiss Enchantment: Hey, it's Dispel Magic. At last. Fireball: Exactly like the classic Fireball with the note that "it's not an explosion because there is no concussive force" extended with a warning that it will expand until its total area is reached even through passages and other architectural constraints. Flight: Exactly what it sounds like, with the caveat that spellcasters who're flying must stop and hover while casting. Ghostform: Turns the mage (and only the mage) incorporeal with the usual caveats, notably that "people who do not know the mage will presume him to be some form of undead; conversely, the undead will not recognize him as a living being and usually ignore his presence". Induce Fatigue: Gives the targets the same fatigue effect that's given after a Haste, but with no benefits. Sphere of Invisibility: The classic Invisibility that ends on an attack or spell cast, but for multiple people in an area. The mage can nominate who is affected, but they must still stay within the sphere to remain invisible. If someone attacks, the spell ends for everyone.
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Aug 17, 2015 17:31
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Hackmaster, 14: Three quarters Have to give a thanks here to System Mastery for the fascinating broadcast on D&D, especially the note that the "3d6 in order" thing wasn't in 1st edition. Even Order of the Stick got that wrong, in that case! Eleventh Level (yes, it goes up to twenty. Spell levels = character levels!) Chlorine Gas Cloud: It's Stinking Cloud with a bit more science involved. Claymore: Thread a string up to 30' across a hallway, and anyone who touches it will set off an explosion dealing 3d10p damage. The spell makes the string hard to see. It can be spotted with Identify Trap, but not disarmed with Disarm Trap - although once you know it's there you can just step over it, so that isn't really necessary. Still another thief downer, though. Create Pit: Lets you dig a pit at the rate of 25 cubic feet of earth per second. Once a certain amount of Earth is excavated you need to roll a Mining check to see if you know how to safely continue exvacation; if you fail, the pit collapses in on itself, leaving behind a divot. You can also hit an Earth Elemental with it for damage. Deep Sleep: Doze upgraded again. Dense Fog: Another clone of Obscuring Mist, but more powerful. Freezing Drizzle: Creates rain of liquid nitrogen(!) in a 40' diameter area. This inflicts cold burns on anyone in the area, and regular environmental protection doesn't mitigate the damage. Induce Cowardice: Similar to the previous morale spell; drops everyone in the area to Cowardly morale if they fail a save. Sarmar's Beacon: Mark a metal item (possibly a coin) and it looks normal to everyone else, but for the wizard who cast the spell, it seems to glow, and they always know where it is as long as it's on the same plane (although only via a vague sense of direction if it's not in actual view). Placing any other enchantment on the item cancels the beacon. Twelveth Level Beguile Creature: Ii's Charm Monster. Gills: A typical Water Breathing spell, only it actually gives the subject gills for 6 hours without any dependence on the caster. Icewall: Creates a semi-opaque wall of ice. It doesn't do any damage on its own unless it falls on someone, but functions as a reasonable wall. Icy Fog: Creates 10,000 square feet of Fog which restricts vision and deals damage slowly (1 hp per 5 seconds). It can freeze water, but not to the point it can be walked on. Quantum Leap: It's Dimension Door, but "the verbal component consists of uttering the Schrodinger equation". Gasp in awe as this implies that the game takes place after 1925. Sniper's Bane: For d6p minutes, any missile fired at the mage bounces off and attacks the shooter. The attacker rolls a defense roll as if they were the defender and hits themselves if they fail, with the same called shot and/or crit as would have hit the wizard. Wow. Defensive supremacy much? Somebody's Watching Me: Sweep the area with a copper baton, and if somebody is scrying on you, you get to make a contested check against them. Success means you learn the name of the scryer and the baton swings to point at them. Handy. Summoning 3: Like Summoning 2, but the creatures can be more powerful and the material component is to strike a triangle. Thirteenth Level Emergency Teleport at Random: Shout "get me outta here" and you teleport to a completely random part of the world, losing all your clothes and gear in the process, but at least not dead. Well, hopefully not. You can spend extra spell points to ensure you teleport somewhere near human habitation. Firewall: Ongoing wall of fire which can be passed through, but at the cost of 4d6p fire damage. Convected heat is dampened on the mage's side, but exists on the opposite site affecting those within 10'. If you cast it on top of someone, they can make a dodge save. Fumble Zone: SImilar effect to previous spells - turns all misses into critical misses if the target fails a save - but works in an area, a 20' cube. Jumping Juju: Summon a Juju spirit of chance and tell it to curse someone. If the target fails their mental save, they get -4 to every dice roll for 13 seconds. After that time, or if they save, the Juju moves to someone else, possibly including the mage themselves. Mist of Corraling: Creates a cloud of mist that limits visibility and is also hard to leave. Leaving is a Feat of Strength. The radius can be adjusted by the mage, but the mist can't be used to crush people since it doesn't really have edges. Toxic Web: Like Web, except that everyone in contact with it must save to see if they get poisoned, giving them a -1 penalty to combat for 2d12 hours. The save can be forced several times and the penalties build; if they get right up to -8, the victim dies. Spiders that can naturally move through web can still be poisoned by it. Interesting. The pattern of "powering up classic spells so they're relevant at all levels" might be a bit of a space filler, but it's a pretty reasonable idea. Fourteenth Level Spells Conjure Warrior Avatar 4: Oh, you know what this does by now. But the avatar's getting pretty strong: +14 to attack. Fireball Volley: You can throw a Fireball spell once every 10 seconds for the duration of the spell (which by default is 30 seconds). You cannot do anything but walk and throw fireballs, though. Frost Ray: Ouch. Throw a beam of absolute-zero cold at a target, and they dodge or take 7d12p damage. So it's disintegration but with an element. Palisade Wall: Creates exactly that, a wooden wall of tree trunks sharpened at the top. It's permanent, but not magical, so it can just be burned down or hacked through. Stoneslither: For the duration you can pass through stone, brick, and rock. Unfortunately, you can't sense anything while within the material, and to move you have to swim rather than walk. If the spell ends while you're still inside the material, you die instantly. Word of Deafness: Deafens everyone within a 100' radius.. with no save, but no exception for friends either. Fifteenth Level Spells Catatonic State: You might not guess it, but this is another entry in the Doze chain. Dryicewall: Like Icewall, but the wall is made of frozen Carbon Dioxide. It deals damage when touched and radiates cold, dealing 1d3 damage in range, and is impossible to see through because of frost on its surface. It doesn't disappear magically, but does melt and sublimate. Freezing Rain: Like Freezing Drizzle, but does more damage. Yes, it's still liquid nitrogen rain, just more of it. Phosphene Gas Cloud: A stinking cloud that doesn't just stink; it burns both skin and lungs, causing ridiculous damage and hours of incapacitation. Hope your mage is proud of using straight up chemical weapons. Summoning 4: You know where this is going. This time you have to blow a bugle. Third Eye: The caster gets a literal third eye, which cannot be blinded by magic or damage and has infravision and.. well, basically True Seeing. Sixteenth Level Spells Brickwall: Yes, creates.. an actual 12" thick brick wall which acts exactly like one, including being rather hard to get through. Idiocy: If the target fails a save their intelligence is immediately knocked to 3/01 - although things they already know are not forgotten. Still, it's a save-or-die really. Magic Carpet: Exactly that. Makes a regular carpet into a magic flying one. Night Fighters: Cast on up to 10 creatures; for the spell duration, they gain Infravision, Inaudibility, and the Blind-Fighting Talent. Open Crevasse: Immediately opens a 16' by 8', 120' deep crevasse in the ground! It's otherwise nonmagical, but creatures on top of it or nearby can be sucked in and fall to the bottom. Oh, and it's permanent, so you've just damaged the planet. Spell Magnet: the target, if they fail a save, thereafter becomes the target of any ranged spell cast in a 100' radius unless the caster wins a roll-off with the original caster. If the ranged spell has an area, the target ends up at the centre of the area. Interesting. Seventeenth Level Gabal's Permanent Magical Aura: It's that goofy spell from D&D that makes an item appear to be magic when it isn't. Portable Hole: Like the goofy magic item from classic D&D, except it's a spell that produces one whenever you like. It normally lasts 4 hours, unless it's removed from a surface that it has tunneled through, in which case it's cut to 4 minutes. Reflective Ward: Like Sniper's Bane, but works for melee too. Screw you, non-casters! They do at least get a save, though. Transport: Teleport from D&D, complete with the error table. Eighteenth Level Conjure Warrior Avatar 5: Zzzzz. Mirror Snare: Hold a mirror up to the target; they make a mental save, and if they fail, they're sucked into the mirror and replaced with a duplicate under the mage's control (who also has reflected appearance and handedness). Breaking the mirror or killing the duplicate brings the original target back. Hmm. Good as a plot device. Not sure about a regular spell.. Torrential Fireball: Like the original Fireball, but does much more damage and is twice the size. Wall of Bronze: Just like all the previous wall spells, but good luck breaking through a wall made of freakin' bronze. Nineteenth Level Black Hole: Creates an actual black hole, although only a pin-point sized one. It still sucks anything nearby towards it and utterly obliterates anything that hits it. No save, but creatures can move away to resist the section. And if a Black Hole touches a Portable Hole, everything goes boom and everything is thrown into random planes. Forcewall: Creates a wall that can't be passed by anything but night. Nothing breaks through, not even magic. The only way through is to go round. Freezing Downpour: It's like Freezing Rain, but with even more damage. Thought Probe: Touch a creature, and you can access their memories with no saving throw, asking one question per minute and getting the answer telepathically. The target cannot lie, but their memory might be wrong. Seems a bit situational to need to be this level. Twentieth Level Directed Shockwave: Sets of an explosion which leaves stone, earth and debris flying in a 40' area for 3 seconds, dealing damage to anyone in that area. Nerve Gas Cloud: More chemical weapons. This one is straightforward, though: save or die. Planar Hole: A longer lasting and larger pulling Black Hole, but instead of destroying what it sucks in, it shifts it to a random plane. Silver Ball: We have to end with a goofy one. Creates a solid steel ball that deals 8d12p damage if not dodged, and bounces randomly around the environment it's cast in until eight impacts or it goes out of range. The caster is rendered deaf, dumb and blind while the ball is moving, but if it comes towards them, they sense it and can bat it away in a direction of their choice and reset the impact counter. Just in case you hadn't figured it out yet, if the ball goes out of range, a glowing notice reading "TILT" appears in the air... So, a general theme of either: - spells from D&D - spells from D&D with an improved progression over levels - some neat and original ideas But still a fair amount of caster supremacy, although remember that mages have more intrinsic limits in HackMaster (casting is an interruptible action that takes time and they're fatigued whenever they cast anything, amongst other things).
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Aug 20, 2015 01:20
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gradenko_2000 posted:HackMaster "4th Edition" does: Wow, forgot that. The "New Edition" HackMaster I've been going through doesn't have that anymore, although it does have alternate damage for weapons hitting shields; but armor is more or less straight up DR.
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Aug 26, 2015 15:43
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So, I'm just saying I'll probably have to wind Hackmaster up because work has started in earnest and there's no way I can devote time to it. Sorry. If someone else wants to do the cleric spells and the dungeon design section, great. There is some stuff I'd still like to cover, but I'll probably try to keep it to single posts. Just so there's some signal in this post, have some stuff I wrote a while back about a Witch Girls Adventures supplement: "Annabelle DeVille's GUILD to Mystical Mayhem". It comes right with a picture of a giant witch holding onto a shrunken mortal on the cover. As with the original book, it begins with a graphic novel. This has the titular Annabelle, and the dreaded Lucinda, going to a cafe where the waitress asks if they're going to a costume party. The witches tell her that servants should stay quiet. For some reason this is enough for the cafe owner to walk over and tell them off for being rude. As a result of this, the witches murder a total of 14 people and then summon giant monsters to destroy the cafe. Yea. Here's the toll: * the owner and the waitress get transformed into cigarettes and smoked (someone really likes this); * 4 patrons are turned into a toad, a pig, a lizard and a mouse; * 4 people trying to escape are turned into a lamp, a pot plant, a lollipop and a little girl (who eats the lollipop). Ok, this is a possible survivor, although she's probably killed by the giant monsters. * The few remaining customers are teleported to the arctic, turned into a bug, and two are turned into ice creams and eaten by the witches as they stroll away. So, let's kick off the actual book: "Welcome to Wicked ways, a supplement for the Witch Girls Adventures Drama Dice Game. About the being wicked." Keep up that editing there. "We say wicked and not evil as we're covering more standard story book villainy and not real world style madness and atrocities." *cough* fourteenrandommurders *cough* "Throughout the book you'll see notes written like this. Those are writing from Annabelle a very and we're using her own words 'Persnickety':, witch girl who know here way around the wicked side of our little wichy- world Annabelle will offer her own musing and comments through the books as well m you can read them or not, it's up to you" Did I mentioned they do credit a proofreader? Abby Soto, who should at least be interested in seeing her own game succeed? So, we start with a discussion of how evil characters might be built. This takes the form of a series of lists - first of "catalysts" which would give a reason to be evil, then "dark deeds" which give the goals they might have, and then "methods" which is actually a list of personality tropes (or at least it starts that way but then they give up and start quoting the Deadly Sins, plus they spell the last one as "Wraith"). The final list could actually be interesting - the "Delusion". The game explains that nobody ever sees themselves as a villain, and suggests how they might justify their actions to themselves. The "Agent of Change" thinks they're making the world better (and the "innovator", um, does too...), the "Better Being" thinks evil actions don't matter because no-one else matters, the "Hero" thinks they're doing good, the "Iconoclast" knows they're strange but refuses to change because they'll never be accepted, "Monsters" know they're evil but think they aren't responsible, "Pranksters" think everything's just fun and have no idea how dangerous it is, "Normals" think everyone is evil so it's no problem that they are too, "Teachers" are basically the Jigsaw Killer, and "Zealots" are.. um.. "In their mind the innocent is so good and pure that the corrupt majority of the world will never understand them. To the innocent their moral crusade and actions are just and their thoughts are above reproach and fort some from a higher power. For the Zealot belief is everything and if something goes against that belief it is by its very nature evil and should be avoided or destroyed." So this one was named "Innocent" at some point, and was then renamed "Zealot", but they didn't bother editing the text. Also, it's essentially the same as the Hero. Still, there's actually at least some reasonable ideas there, although half of them are not actually reasons why someone wouldn't think they were a villain but reasons why they'd think it was OK to be one. There's then a section on crime and punishment. It says that there are Magistrates who prosecute witches who cast malicious magic on other witches, or make magic known to mortals. If a Magistrate catches a witch, the punishment is "a fine, community service, or binding" depending on whether or not the crime can be reversed. Binding effectively turns the witch into a mortal for a limited time. There's a table of lengths of binding for crimes, which include "Using magic to gain money" (but using it to substitute for services or goods that would otherwise have required exchange of money is fine - oops, someone doesn't get economics), "turning someone into a piece of furniture for more than a week", and "magical murder that cannot be undone". There's suggestion of some other punishments that might be used instead of binding, because witches are horrified by the idea of being bound. (Of course, one of the punishments is to be turned into an object and put on display as a deterrent to crime.) There's then a list of mitigating circumstances, such as political power (translation, "Lucinda's OK because she's a princess"), self defense and.. aha. "Youth". If a witch is young, then unless a crime "is extremely resulted in a lost of life", they won't get any harsh punishment. Let's remember that witches don't naturally age. Finally, we get a list of villainous organizations and the ones that oppose them. Again, there's nothing too original or special here, apart from what is presumably a jab at White Wolf: "The Night Court: The night court is composed of Dark fae, witches Shapeshifter and vampires who nothing less than to bring about eternal darkness to the world... the organization is so badly run it's more of a club for Emo and Goth otherkin than a real threat." So, the next chapter brings us into the actual meat, and we start with Wicked Cliques. With a warning that they might be a bit more powerful than the originals, we get: BRAT: The only clique who doesn't get the standard dice spread. They give up their d8 in a mundane stat for a starting d10 in Magic. The two bonuses they get are "Tantrum" (they get a combat bonus against the first target who hurt them), and "Wicked Wonder" which is a scaled down version of Lucinda's unique "Dark Child" from the first book - it gives a +1 bonus to wicked spells, and lets you spend a Zap point to make the spell permanent. (It is worth bearing in mind that most spells can be augmented to be permanent by adding one MTR in the standard rules, so this is really only for edge cases.) BULLY: Standard progression and two bonuses: they can "glare" at people to trigger an opposed Will roll to intimidate someone. This means that "the person effected about this abilty is -1 to all rolls against the bully for D6 minutes and cannot act against the bully in way for the abilities duration". Not quite sure how they would be rolling against the bully for an action they can't take, but ok. She also gets +1 to wicked actions and an extra D6 damage and D6 armor ignoring - so this is basically an attempt at an evil antidote to Punch Witches, except they still have the problem of not maxing body. IMP: Standard progression. "Twisted Wicked" gives a +1 to wicked actions (groan) and says that if the action is humourous, then the target loses their next action through being flustered. This seems utterly pointless. Most successful wicked actions are going to take out a character for much longer than that. They can also cast one spell a day from a school they don't have, provided it's level equal or lower than their best school and they pay double points. PRIMA DONNA: Standard progression. They can spend a Zap point to add their Social stat to rolls to resist damage, get +1 to wicked actions (GROAN) and +2 if it's Will or Social based. They think they're better than everyone else, but ironically they're actually way worse. RINGLEADER: Same as the Brat progression, but they start the game with "10 allowances in Minions". They also get +1 to wicked actions (HEADDESK) and give this to all allies they have helping them with the action. What exactly "10 allowances in Minions" means isn't clear: Minion is a Conjuration spell from the base group that creates an obedient Average Mundane with a synthetic background. There are no stats for an Average Mundane anywhere in either book. We then get "wicked social classes". Um. These are Nobility (which is Rich from the main book with more skill bonuses), Underworld (which gives ranks in criminal skills), and the best one. Traveler. We never find out why travelers are evil. We do find out that this social class gives +1 to body die type, so Punch Witch is laughing even harder. And, amazingly, that's practically all there is. Beyond that, there's just a bunch of generic example characters as people who "might fight wicked characters" - which is basically everyone else.
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Sep 22, 2015 22:16
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theironjef posted:In order to review Witch Girls, I had to buy a pdf of it off Drivethru. Then I read it and realized it had never been edited by anyone ever. Even the logo had misspellings in it. We made great and happy light of this on the show. Hang on, I thought I sent you WGA together with Noumenon. Did you end up buying one of the supplements or something? Or does DTRPG add the recipent's e-mail address to the customer register when you buy an item as a gift? That could be.. awkward.
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Oct 28, 2015 14:37
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theironjef posted:You're right, you did! Sorry about that! I haven't actually bought much on drivethruRPG, just second copies of some books when we have had to read and travel. I'm pretty sure the solution is the second one, since gift recipients have to register to access their library of content. It's not an issue, just adds fun stuff to the promotions tab, especially in this case. Well, I just got their daily promotion. It's another Halloween special, which was the dreadful Harquinli book last time. This time it's a book enhancing the magic rules. It focuses on one particular kind of spell. You have one guess what type that is. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/154683/The-Principia-Permutationis
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Oct 28, 2015 20:07
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Lynx Winters posted:The second edition of Hong Kong Action Theater was vaguely similar. If that game the players made their Actors that they played as from story to story, and their stats represented things they usually take with them into every movie, like Jackie Chan would have Improvised Weapons Training because he's gonna use it in every single movie he's in. At the start of each movie, the players would bid on the Role they want their actor to portray. The Roles for each story were basically a bunch of perks, extra skills, merits/flaws, etc that went on top of your actor's base stats, but only for that story. So if your actor had Martial Arts 2 and their role had Martial Arts 2 then for that story they have Martial Arts 4. If a role had some perk like Disposable Sidekick then you knew your buddy Sean Bean wasn't going to make it to the credits, but if an actor has the same perk then they pretty much get a Sean Bean buddy in every movie. Kind of a neat system, but then it was stapled onto Tri-Stat so whoops. Oh, I remember that book. The one snag was that the roles were defined in the story/movie/adventure/whatever and because of the bidding system, it was possible you'd lose the auction and end up with a completely mismatched role. Even in the starting scenario make your big buff strongman actor, lose the role auction and end up as a kung-fu ballerina with now barely-average stats in Strength and Agility because the role and actor didn't stack anywhere.
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Oct 28, 2015 21:41
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I did actually sort-of-vaguely like Immortal's idea of doing multiple skill checks at the same time and keeping them all on the same scale. So that if you're good at Perception and working out where things are, you're generally good at that whatever situation it is, unlike the issue you end up with in D20 and other games with combat/skill segregation where your Perception doesn't help you if you're shooting, and conversely being really good at shooting automatically makes you good at dealing with any possible circumstances that come up while you are shooting.
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Dec 12, 2015 02:39
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