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I, too, haven't watched NGE since the original series, but IIRC the first Angel fight is mostly Shinji going "You want me to WHAT? A WHAT? In a WHAT? With a WHAT?" Then he figures out the right tactic to beat the monster, which is to run up to it and hit the big red button on its chest.
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Mar 13, 2019 17:15
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Halloween Jack posted:I, too, haven't watched NGE since the original series, but IIRC the first Angel fight is mostly Shinji going "You want me to WHAT? A WHAT? In a WHAT? With a WHAT?" Then he figures out the right tactic to beat the monster, which is to run up to it and hit the big red button on its chest. The first angel fight is Shinji getting his poo poo rocked and his Eva going berserk to win the fight. Its basically an extremely intense introduction that Eva is not going to go the way other giant robo shows go. Barudak fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Mar 13, 2019 |
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Mar 13, 2019 17:33
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Emerald Empire: Troll In The Dungeons Wasureta Mura, the Forgotten Village, sits in the Valley of Spirits between the Shinomen and the Twilight Mountains. It has been dead for a very, very long time, and it calls out to its neighbors, trying to get them to come and live there. Villagers see beautiful people beckoning them, childlike figures running in the woods, the images of long-dead friends. Whatever the spirits think will get them to come. Rumors say it was called by anything from bandits to curses, but no one really bothers to find the truth. People sometimes vanish in the valley, especially those with troubled hearts, who are disappointed with their lives or feel they don’t belong. They hear the call of Wasureta Mura more clearly, the deeper they go into the wooded valley. Those who have strong connections with other people, are content with their lives or have strong passions or commitments in the living world have trouble finding the village. Their ties to the living keep them from sensing the ruins. This makes it hard to get rid of the spirits – the sheer determination needed to do so makes it hard to find them. Samurai who have suffered terrible wounds, lost loved ones or become fascinated by death have it easier finding the village…and a harder time escaping it. A few bushi have tried to purify the place, but some do not return, suffering from the terrible ennui that the village engenders and thrives with. The others say they only saw a ruined village briefly, or caught voices on the edge of hearing. Local priests believe that the nearby villages may contain salvaged construction from the Forgotten Village, which invites spirits and nightmares. A simple purification can solve this, but most of those affected refuse to allow one at all, as they claim their dead relatives are speaking to them. Some misguided villagers make annual sacrifices to the Forgotten Village. Most send volunteers to do so, though the social pressure to volunteer can be strong. Some villages have fallen into violence selecting unwilling “volunteers,” and a few are too eager to do so, strengthening a burgeoning maho ritual. Things get worse if the volunteer finds that Wasureta Mura doesn’t want them – they are now homeless and rejected, and will face even worse violence if they return to their original village as a failure. It is only as they embrace despair that the Forgotten Village invites them home. Forgotten Village Rumors posted:
Our NPC is Kasai, Mountain Troll. Kasai has seen many of his people die due to humans, and he has come to the Valley of Spirits to get away from them. He is scarred and broken by his experiences, having seen many of his kind fall to the Shadowlands, the ravages of time and encroaching humanity. He remembers all of it, all of the betrayals and pains. While his a misanthrope, he deliberately avoids attacking humans. He dresses in rags and attempts to appear as a spirit to drive them away instead, howling in the night to scare people and leaving rotting animal carcasses around to press the message home and to force people away with the smell. If anyone actually gets him to talk, he calls himself an animal, despite clinging to the trappings of civilization. He keeps the scrolls and books he finds on dead travelers or dropped by people fleeing in terror, and he builds himself small huts out of wood and stone. If someone listens, they might hear his low, guttural songs in the night – terrible and lonely. He wants to seek out other trolls, but that would mean leaving the Valley for human lands. He hates humanity, and his hatred battles his discipline. He refuses to become a monster and kill his way through, and so he remains isolated, angry and lonely. Adventure seed: A local priest has gone into the Valley of Spirits to set up more talismans against the spirits there, but she hasn’t returned. The villagers need her for the normal blessings they require, but are not brave enough to enter the wood. The PCs may follow the trail of new wards to find a mutilated deer corpse that is drawing in a pack of starving wolves. After that, there is a haunted tree that is imprisoning a lost villager. After that, they run into Kasai. He has been stalking them, and while he will ambush them and attack, he will withdraw before he does any serious damage. Finally, the PCs will reach Wasureta Mura’s ruins, but the priest there won’t leave. While she was kidnapped by Kasai, she believes she can convert him to the Shintao and end his pain. Kasai’s anger and hatred of humans isn’t helping her work, of course. When some mercenaries show up to kill Kasai, the PCs must decide what they value among the priest’s safety, the troll’s health and the possibility of a huge fight between the troll and the ronin mercenaries. The coastline is not usually thought of as wild lands – but that is because the coasts that are settled are the accessible parts. The cliffs, crags and broken shores are all isolated, uncivilized places. The northern coasts tend to be rocky, sheer cliffs and stone stands with strong winds and chilly water. The coast gets better as you head south, as the water warms and the weather improves. One of the more famous beaches in this area is the sacred Fields of the Morning Sun in Shinkyou Province, where all violence is forbidden. The islands of Spice and Silk have both kinds of beach, due to volcanic activity, and the subtropical climate brings frequent rains and storms, which can change the coastline on an almost monthly basis. The sea is simultaneously a source of life and death. Natural disasters in general strike the Phoenix Clan less than any other, because the Phoenix command the Elemental Masters, shugenja of immense power that are able to prevent the coastal disasters that more often strike other clans. This is part of why Phoenix peasants are so much more devoted and pious than others – they know where their blessings come from. The Phoenix coast also produces a lot of salt, which priests rely on and consecrate in exchange for use of it. Even in Phoenix lands, though, a traveling priest must be careful not to overtax village resources when they visit. If their blessings fail to bring prosperity, heimin may even grow angry and bar the priest from coming back – or even attack them. Demands for their work lead many to travel up and down the coasts, leaving them vulnerable to attack by many bandits, pirates and wild beasts. The Crane lands are rather more vulnerable than the Phoenix coasts, as demonstrated by the tsunami that devastated their coastline three years back, and they still haven’t totally recovered. The displacement of Crane refugees has disrupted Crane food production and tax revenue, and while the Daidoji Trading Council has provided some aid in rebuilding, it suffers from nepotism, incompetence and neglect, so every report of damage must be inspected carefully, slowing things down. The Mantis, uniquely, live and die entirely by the sea. They have mastered water, earth and fire, learning from the many volcanos of their islands, which often bring steam, earthquakes and hot springs. As yet, none of them have erupted and threatened the clan, which has meant their wealth continues to grow. Trade and piracy fuel their ambitions for Imperial recognition, and the Mantis have excellent schools, high rate of literacy and education that doesn’t lose compared to the Major Clans, all on the fuel of the sea and the elements. Sea life is often dangerous. While fish, urchins and cuttlefish are good food, sharks, octopi and other predators are a constant threat to fishermen and pearl divers. Stories of impossibly immense variants of these beasts taking down entire ships are common. Water and air kami are also threats along the coastline. If offended, they can cause terrible damage, and it’s not always easy to tell a natural storm from the wrath of the kami. A giant squid might well be the physical form of a spirit, as well, and sailors under attack often pour sake, blessed salt or rice into the sea, praying as they do. Many fishing villages maintain shrines to the air and water kami for the same reason. Villages that are cared for by the kami not only receive great fishing and protection from the elements, they may also receive valuable knowledge of the coast or be protected from pirates by a spirit defender. Sailors speak of other sea creatures, part human and part fish, which are not kami. No offering or blessing will attract their aid. They swim in the wake of ships, watching drowning sailors, and they have no interest in cargo. Villagers have reported these creatures inland as well, in places like White Shore Lake among the Unicorn territories. Some stories say these creatures are called ningyo, that they live in the ruins of cities and palaces under the sea, such as the lost Kyuden Morehei. It is believed that if a mortal eats the flesh of a ningyo, they may become immortal. Ningyo sightings often draw in desperate or greedy hunters, whose presence inevitably brings chaos and misery. Next time: The Cave of the Stone Children and the Summerlands.
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Mar 13, 2019 17:57
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Adeptus Evangelion Adeptus Evangelion Is Not A Horror Game So, that's what we start the horror section with. 'This is not a horror game, but here are some spooky horror scenarios!'. The sort of horror we'll be getting here is very randomized and not very scary. They're more of lists of spooky special effects and instant-kill saves than anything that might actually be frightening. I think part of the problem with all of these scenarios (besides the authors not being creative people) is that a proper horror scenario in this kind of game relies on tailoring it to your players' characters. You can't just throw spooky shadows and random tables with the equivalent of jump-scares at the wall and hope they stick; you need to work at what frightens the characters themselves. With that said, let's get to our first set of spooky shadows and random tables with Nightmare in the 8th Dimension. This scenario has an angel with dimension shifting powers manage to banish all of NERV HQ to the shadow zone, such that your PCs have to get through areas of altered space and time (since you are now in the Shadow Zone) to get to their Evas and try to fight the thing. The 'horror' in this section comes from the tedious minigame of rolling for random dungeon-crawling issues the characters encounter as they try to make their way to their destination, then rolling a lot (or figuring out some obtuse stuff like 'oh we can make it through easily if we close our eyes') to gather or lose Progress. Did you guess there was going to be a subsystem with zero actual meaningful decision making and a lot of rolling? You guessed right! There's also a SPOOOOOOKY special effect where if a PC dies during all this, they actually die even if they burned fate, but then somehow you find them alive in the next room! Spooooooky! You roll for other SPOOKY SPECIAL EFFECTS and dungeon crawl challenges as you go, each gaining or losing you Progress. They range from finding the starved-to-death and naked body of a PC (who gains IP) to shifty rooms or hallways you can't get to the end of to having to dodge or die as an angel-fired laser beam cuts through your path. You can also run into treasure rooms containing a bevy of useless assault rifles and 'supplies' (remember: PCs besides the OD do not know how to use weapons. Also, there is no actual combat in this adventure unless it's added by the GM) and you have to spend Progress to get to them, so, uh...don't? Getting to the Command Deck is mostly useless for you, since at best it just puts your OD in place on a command deck with communications down and a fair number of the staff dead or missing. It also costs as much Progress as getting to the EVA CAGES, which are, you know, the goal. If you get to the Eva Cages, there are a few more potential hurdles ranging from 'have to tear free of the docking clamps' to 'evil black shadow you have to somehow force back on foot stopping you from entering'. Once you're in the Evas, you fight the angel normally and try to save the base. Getting to Terminal Dogma without your Evas seems kind of pointless because what are you going to do, draw a sidearm and shoot the angel in the foot to stop it stealing your macguffin? Oh, they also suggest that getting home might require a PC to self-destruct their Eva's core and burn Fate. The GM is free to just demand one player eat poo poo at random to actually end the scenario. Also, if you hit -5 Progress at any point, the angel wins and you all die because you took too long. Burn Fate or end campaign. The end, no moral. Also note several of the Progress event things can kill you, like the angel laser or the hallway collapsing. For getting through all this bullshit, the book recommends giving out a Fate Point to everyone, 'aging the characters from contact with time and space' and giving them +5 to their three lowest stats, giving double EXP for the combat, or granting a big Research boost. You really see their definition of 'horror' in this adventure: Lots of rolling dice to see if you eat poo poo, lots of random special effects and jump-scares, no real depth. The next adventure is just 'Man, I really liked Stalker the videogame but can't take the time to actually build up its persistent sense of place or dread, and also I want giant robots in it.' The Polarity Shift has someone have used an Anti-AT Field during the last fight, and now a Zone of altered space has come into being in a populated area. Your AT fields will protect you from the Weird Random poo poo on the Weird Random poo poo tables (yep, all randomly rolled tables again) as you walk on in and try to figure out how to use your team's ATT (You better have an AT Tact) to either make another Anti-AT field to cancel it or use one of the dimension shift powers to banish the Weird poo poo to the shadow zone. That's the entire adventure. Also, there's a random chance every time you roll for Weird Random poo poo that you roll 'lose the adventure' and need to flee before you take 4d10 unreduceable Wounds, Insanity, and Ego from touching THE RED LIGHT. I could go into all the Weird Random poo poo (they bring in the Perils of the loving Warp table) but I don't care. This is entirely a 'roll for spooky special effect until you get to the center then hope you brought the wizard powers to win' adventure. You can also 'use any other plan the GM finds reasonable' I guess. Meanwhile there's a random chance you just lose every time you roll. If you brought the requisite Wizard poo poo and win, you get d10+10 Research. If you lose and survive, you get d5. This whole 'ooooo, we flickered the lights on and off like a horror shovelware game on Steam!!!!' stuff doesn't do it for me. The Boneyard is another dungeon crawl. Kind of funny how all the horror scenarios are dungeon crawls, in this, the game where you're attached to an umbilical. For this, your Evas gets the heavy N2 Reactor backpacks and structural support to wear them, so you can't run out of time inside the Spooky Dungeon. You're sent in to investigate why one of the Eva testing and manufacturing facilities (long since decommissioned) has gone completely dark. To investigate, they send in 40m tall killer robots. The base was an important base, until everyone there died in a spooky ghost incident while trying to demonstrate AT Fields early in Eva development. It was decommissioned and kept in lockdown until spooky ghosts began to appear again, and killed everyone again in another spooky ghost incident. NERV is pretty sure your killer robots can handle some spooky ghosts. There is, of course, a subsystem for Anomalous Activity Levels. The more stuff you do within the dungeon, the worse the spooky ghost incident gets. As you go through and bring your Evas into an area, you reach 'delta' and spooky ghost poo poo commences. Spreading an AT field or reading classified documents and files causes 'Charlie' and the spooky ghost poo poo gets more dramatic. Using an AT power or destroying part of the facility causes 'bravo', which is official The Spooky Ghost poo poo Tries To Hurt You. Alpha level is special and will cause maximum spooks. Each area has different spooks for the various levels of ghost poo poo. At Alpha, you also start spawning angry ghost-phantoms that potentially want the pilots dead and are up to the GM. The testing grounds for the Evas are zone 1, and as Spooky Ghost poo poo levels increase, you see increasingly obvious ghost battles in the proving ground. At Alpha scale, GHOST PALLET RIFLES start shooting the players! The horror! In the armory, you see the fall of the facility more and more clearly until eventually you watch spooky ghost monsters killing spooky ghost holograms of the staff. Also, you can steal a giant chainsaw out of the armory or something GM willing, but they're all poo poo weapons (and the GM is advised to make them thus). In general, as the Spooky Ghost poo poo level goes up, you see more and more of the fall of the facility and eventually hit 'oh no horrors is eating all the phantom recollections of the facility staff', so really I could just say that much and skip ahead. Once you get to the actual Eva designing pits, you get to where they built the entry plugs. If you try to get into an abandoned entry plug, some bad poo poo happens to you because why did you get into an entry plug you found in an abandoned ghost infested facility, that was very foolish. Finally, after lots of going around and getting spooked by jump scares, you eventually get to the actual Boneyard. It's where all the failed Eva spines are stacked up. Coming here reveals that an awful lot of Evas die for every Eva they successfully build that works for the pilots, and also immediately jams the Spooky Ghost poo poo level to max for all of the facility. You are then attacked by Eva zombies that try to drag your Evas into the hell pit so the monster pit of zombies can eat the Eva and spit it out with new parts. This will kill the pilot unless they eject, but not wreck the Eva. The Eva zombies aren't especially powerful, and killing enough of them might end the Spooky Ghost poo poo. Otherwise, the pilots eventually flee the facility and when they get out, the whole thing vanishes as if it was never there. There are a bunch of possible explanations for the Spooky Ghost poo poo given afterwards, ranging from an advertisement for a dropped 'AT Berserker' class called the Apostle to 'this facility accidentally contacted some other cosmic horror' to 'it was all a parallel dimension!' None are especially interesting, though it's hilarious to see the Apostle getting talked up here. Someone was really excited about that class before it got dropped from the game; I think it might be in the forked Borderline edition with a bunch of other ill-thought-out-pilot-types but it sure ain't here. So that's the Horror scenarios. Their idea of horror is a dungeon crawl where you roll for jump scare. Only Boneyard doesn't rely on absolutely random tables and tries to have a coherent theme to its horror element (the slow emergence of 'what happened to the facility') but it lacks enough definition to really work. With that, I'm finally done with the loving scenarios. Next Time: The Angels
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Mar 13, 2019 19:49
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Is an Anti-AT Field even a thing?
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Mar 13, 2019 20:39
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Mors Rattus posted:Is an Anti-AT Field even a thing? It's a big super attack spell/I can be a D&D Wizard spell for the AT-Tactician that requires doing a bunch of stuff with merging fields with your allies to use here, but it's something the MPEvas and Adam can do to just mass collapse AT fields and cause mass tanging, apparently? In the actual series it's just a massive and extreme neutralization, I think. A terminal one. Not what it is in that scenario. The writers for the game just kind of seize on it as a 'create a different reality' field and make it a do-everything super-spell when again, it mostly just killed a lot of people. Same for their love of the pocket dimension trick one angel uses, expanding that into an entire power set.
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Mar 13, 2019 20:45
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Isn't the whole point of AT fields that they're the boundary separating people from each other? And when humans lose their AT field they turn into tang, because they're returning to a pre-unified state. So an anti-AT field seems like a logical weapon for the 'collapse everyone into a sea of tang' antagonists to use. Also, that means that breaching an AT field is literally forcing someone to recognize you as an entity that exists and losing your separation from them. Most of the time this is used for murder. A friend of mine also argues that almost all of the special weird angel attacks are basically means of communication - psychic blasts, computer hacking, dragging Shinji into another universe that's inside their soul. It's all attempts to communicate, and causes mass death. This is a show where 'trying to talk to someone' is presented as a terrifying existential threat, because that's the actual central theme of isolation and the terror of vulnerability. E: If one wanted to be ironic, we could claim that the creators of AdEva psychologically refused to let the show communicate with them, because its actual statements about vulnerability and the need for human connection were too terrifying.
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Mar 13, 2019 20:58
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There's no place for it in the review because it's all stuff I remember from impressions I had of material I saw 9 years ago, but I should also take a moment to talk about the 'extra' classes they wanted to add into the game since the Apostle came up in the Boneyard. The three I remember were the Apostle, the Customizer (which I remember specifically because it was dumber than usual), and I don't remember what it was called (The Brave or something) but the third was supposed to be the pilot trying to be a standard super robot hero or something. I think arguing over these three might be the kind of stuff that got the game forked into 2.5 and Borderline. The Apostle was supposed to be 'The ATT but more' with them going all angelic and dangerous and trying to be a dark AT wizard who AT Berserks instead of physically Berserking. They didn't really have a specific mechanical role, someone just thought that would be a 'cooler' form of wizard class and let them have their PC change more and become more like an angel hybrid with time. The Customizer was the dumbest of them and was a super skirmisher that got all kinds of broken abilities based around 'well I'm such a super genius that I, personally, the 14 year old kid, made all kinds of Ace Custom modifications to my Eva and also shackled it way better so it never loses control and I'm the best'. I remember that concept being really popular with the 'I want to play a SpecOps Adult Pilot' types. They were like someone melded a giant robot and a Fantasy Flight Techpriest, and then gave it action-economy breaking abilities because what amateur game doesn't do that? The third guy, who I think was called the Brave but can't remember precisely, was supposed to be a hotblooded and destructive super robot pilot who caused a lot of collateral damage if I remember right. Given collateral damage is your victory points this was obviously not the best thought out idea for a character class. It was the kind of stuff you get from people who see all this unnecessary material and think 'we need to design splatbooks for this, the game of a million subsystems already'.
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Mar 13, 2019 21:11
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Joe Slowboat posted:E: If one wanted to be ironic, we could claim that the creators of AdEva psychologically refused to let the show communicate with them, because its actual statements about vulnerability and the need for human connection were too terrifying. Night I hope you keep going because we have a reward for you when you finish.
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Mar 13, 2019 21:43
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This AdEva thing just keeps on going, huh? I want to be clear that I'm not knocking the review, but with this last update I'm just kind of struck by "they don't know when to stop, do they? Like, at all!" marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Mar 13, 2019 |
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Mar 13, 2019 21:54
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marshmallow creep posted:This AdEva thing just keeps on going, huh? Wordcount ceases to be a limiter when you work entirely in Google Docs.
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Mar 13, 2019 21:58
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Nessus posted:Does it count as irony if it seems to be the literal and explicit case? Hell, probably motivated by the archnerds at Gainax getting mad at wow-cool-robot.jpg, possibly in so many words (if not so many pictures). W-we do? Why did no one tell me about this?!? 
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Mar 13, 2019 22:01
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marshmallow creep posted:This AdEva thing just keeps on going, huh? I am almost done. The only things left are the angel rules, which are pretty complicated but I'll be summarizing heavily, then I'm going to show off Deadhorsiel and by god Asuka is going to get to try to shoot something with that goddamn chaingun before this is done. One of the jokes in my head is that I have to go through 500 loving pages before I've actually shown off enough mechanics to show a snapshot of example combat. I should be done before the week is out. Nessus posted:Night I hope you keep going because we have a reward for you when you finish. I'm not stopping this close to the finish line, though you can probably tell I'm hurrying a bit. My reward will be being done with this game, but I think it still deserves to be shown off in detail because it's a great example of how fan games and amateur design can go off the rails. I am absolutely not innocent of this with my own homebrewing, either; I've made basically every mechanical mistake the AdEva people are making at some point in fiddling around with RPG rules. The mechanical mistakes are not hard mistakes to make when you're working on your own and I think having such an obvious example of them is useful and instructive.
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Mar 13, 2019 22:02
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Write like you're going to print your game out on the company printer while the boss is on lunch break.
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Mar 13, 2019 22:04
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Tibalt posted:Write like you're going to print your game out on the company printer while the boss is on lunch break. It's legitimately an important lesson. I defend crunchy game design because I think when it's done well it can add a lot to a game by giving you mechanical levers to engage with both as the GM and the player that can end up making the fiction easier to write. But everything you do is taking up your reader's time and memory, so even if you're going crunchy and complex you want to cut out everything you can. You always have to ask 'do I need this subsystem' or 'how often is this going to get used' or 'does this need to work differently than the core mechanic?' I think the most astonishing thing for me is I'm going to be summarizing a lot, so it will only be a couple updates left in this, but there are 150 pages of their special OC Archangels and them trying to give game stats to every angel from the show, despite most of them being unfightable in the normal combat system. I admit I'm going to skip the Archangels for the most part. I just can't care about their gimmick bosses when every one of them boils down to 'annoying gimmick, numberslam.'
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Mar 13, 2019 22:11
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Night10194 posted:It's legitimately an important lesson. I defend crunchy game design because I think when it's done well it can add a lot to a game by giving you mechanical levers to engage with both as the GM and the player that can end up making the fiction easier to write. But everything you do is taking up your reader's time and memory, so even if you're going crunchy and complex you want to cut out everything you can. You always have to ask 'do I need this subsystem' or 'how often is this going to get used' or 'does this need to work differently than the core mechanic?' As someone who's run games by coding complicated custom mechanics onto base systems in things like Maptools and Roll20 and found out she didn't even really want them about 2 years in favour of just telling narrative stories, I can empathise. Sometimes it doesn't even go as far as your readers and you just realise you yourself don't need what youw rote.
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Mar 13, 2019 22:20
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Mors Rattus posted:Wordcount ceases to be a limiter when you work entirely in Google Docs. And nobody to finally say "No, stop, we're not paying for this."
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Mar 13, 2019 22:34
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The big Anti-AT field in Eva is the end if the show, it is the titular mass tang and it is defeated by a boy everybody crapped on, possiby on purpose so hed be more willing to accept the Tang Ending, deciding "no, I want to have a real shot at self actualization and that requires a self to actualize" The only major AT spell like effects in the show beyond barriers are mostly physical, using it to crush and destroy other things and the one time Rei uses it to absorb an Angel into herself to blow both of them sky high which happens to be the split point for the rebuild movies and the series. This isnt to say you couldnt have a caster system in Eva, there are a hell if a lot of spell like effects that sometimes Evas even get to use, just that the AT field isnt usually the justification like in the acid spitters case. Barudak fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Mar 13, 2019 |
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Mar 13, 2019 23:57
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 Part 8: At least it won’t end with a kid staring into a snowglobe  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BzPbmkwHwA With the gun fights over, it’s time to get patched up, assuming there’s anything left. We start with a revisit of the rules for dying and how to stabilize a mortally wounded comrade (they were just in the last section, guys) but we learn that failing a Death Save is not necessarily the end of the road for a character. Once they fail a Death Save, a character is in the first stage of expiring (DEAD 0), but they’re not beyond recovery until they reach DEAD 10. Death stages progress by 2 every minute, and during this time, their buddies have hopefully called Trauma Team. Trauma Team is one of two corporations in CP2020 that exist mainly to justify game mechanics. After the call is made (usually by snapping a card), then 1d6+1 minutes later a Trauma Team air-ambulance (aka an AV-4) arrives on the scene and makes a 1d10 roll. If the roll is higher than the current death stage, then the dying character is saved. Otherwise it’s off to the body bank. Having avoided re-rolling a new character, the question now becomes how long it will take to heal up. To start, you need to make a skill check either First Aid or Medical Tech against the number of wounds taken (if left untreated, the character takes 2 points of damage each day and must make a Death Save daily if he’s past the mortal wound threshold). One oversight is there’s no time frame on how often the check can be made. Once the check is made, the rate of healing depends on a number of factors. First Aid has a base healing rate of 0.5 points/day, while Medical Tech has a base of 1 point/day. Drugs, antibodies, nanotechnology, and certain bioware can speed the rate of recovery even further. Finally we have penalties for character recovering from wounds, in case the Referee wanted to have a hospital shootout.  After that, we get the rules for cybernetic surgery, the same as in section 6. The only new info here is that if you want to keep the meat part for some reason, you can pay 100-200 eb a month to have it put in a freezer, but there’s a risk it’ll be sold. Hooray for useless sub-rules. By the way, the cost of getting a cybernetic arm + surgery + supporting cybernetics in this dystopian future is 7,000 eb. I’ve been fortunate enough to never have to worry about replacing a limb, but I’d be curious to know what the cost is in our actual hellworld. I’m guessing CP2020's prices are about as accurate as it's prediction of cell phone costs. We then get several paragraphs describing Trauma Team Inc. They act as Cyber-M.A.S.H. for whoever has an account (500 eb/month). When called, the Trauma Team will Kool-Aid man their way into a situation, and if there’s a firefight still going on, they have plenty of firepower to keep any idiots from interfering with their work. As I said, Trauma Team Inc. exists as a game convenience so characters don’t need to be replaced the first time they get unlucky in combat. Honestly, I’m alright with that, as much as I can make cracks about affordable healthcare being the least realistic aspect of the setting. The next section is on the cost of meat body parts, both selling and purchasing (twice selling cost). Theoretically a fully intact body will bring in about 9,000 dollars, though it’ll probably be a lot less owing to the work needed to make the body dead. On the purchasing side, there’s a 30% chance there’s no compatible donor, and a 20% chance that it doesn’t match. It’s possible to grow a replacement, but doing so doubles the price. Still, it’s an alternative to cybernetics that doesn’t carry any Humanity Loss and is usually cheaper even if vat grown (eyes and ears are the big exception).  Medical technology can do more than heal wounds and replace limbs. There’s the option of changing appearance. The more you spend, the harder it is to tell you had plastic surgery. This only affects the way you look, so you can’t recreate Face/Off (yet). You can also increase your Attractiveness stat for 600 eb a point, further cementing it as a dump stat. Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 posted:Want to decrease your Attractiveness? A straight razor costs ninety-five cents. And finally,  we get rules for Exotic Fashion, or in today’s parlance, how to be a furry in this game. Facial scults, tails, paws, fur or scales, everything you need to become your fursona. There’s no benefit for doing this, and some even have penalties (-2 Reflex, or a 10% chance of getting skin cancer). While it’s only a small section in the core book, Exotic Fashion will be expanded on in Chromebook 2, i.e. the supplement where CP2020 lost its goddamn mind. If I get to that book, I may need to self medicate for that part. Speaking of which...Next Time:  2020/2020 Count: 4 SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 01:47
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Going by https://health.costhelper.com/prosthetic-arms.html a guy who was getting experimental arms that seemed to meet the criterion of cyber-arms as outlined in this book had them cost a cool six million, literally making him the Six Million Dollar Man. To be fair, that was for both arms. Naturally this would go down when economies of manufacturing scale went up. Probably a more accurate comparison for a lot of cyberwear is smart phones, which do many of the functions people were supposed to get microsofts or chip implants for.
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Mar 14, 2019 02:20
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Im really greatful to this cyberpunk review because its showing me just how much of Oblivions rules were just Cyberpunk 2020 but made in a cheap knockoff factory somewhere and so the box says Digipunk 0202
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Mar 14, 2019 02:44
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Nessus posted:Going by https://health.costhelper.com/prosthetic-arms.html a guy who was getting experimental arms that seemed to meet the criterion of cyber-arms as outlined in this book had them cost a cool six million, literally making him the Six Million Dollar Man. To be fair, that was for both arms. Additive manufacturing (3d printing) will likely drop the pricing of such things, because the way things work now is that you have to make casts and molds to the arm and custom-build the prosthetic for individual proportions. With 3D scanning and printing, you can eliminate a large number of steps and materials. Just do your measurements, scan the stump to fit, and drop in new measurements into CAD and print up an arm. The thought is that you can get them down to under $500.
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Mar 14, 2019 02:58
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Part 9: Dude, Where’s My Editor?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vory0ErGW3w Like pretty much every game written in the eighties not that wasn’t fantasy, Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 has rules for drugs. In all these systems, drugs are either going to have so many drawbacks that characters are never going to use them, or they’re going to be so beneficial that characters are never going to be off them. CP2020 somehow manages to be both. CP2020 also falls into the same trap as a lot of media, particularly in this time period, of going into great detail as to how drugs can be destructive, but never exploring why people do drugs, which I think is a big failing for a dystopian setting that includes them. Drugs feel like setting dressing to justify why this group of gangers isn’t running away after you’ve mowed down half a dozen of them in 3 seconds. Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. posted:As any fan of Miami Vice (or a player who watches a lot of real life cop shows) drugs are a great way to get people on the streets with lots of automatic weapons; the perfect “McGuffin” for a mean, nasty, lowlife adventure. Aside from the tonal issues, the rules for drugs are a mess. The section starts with a selection of common street drugs. But then there’s rules for making your own custom drugs, and it’s pretty clear that these rules can’t duplicate the drugs provided. You have to flip over to the next page to figure out all the effects of the drug. A couple of drugs are defined as “stimulants” but the effect of stimulants are never defined (is it a stat booster? I have no idea). There’s implications in some of the drugs that there are rules for checking if you get addicted, but it’s never spelled out and the Referee is just left to guess. There’s a combat drug that improves CL, a stat that doesn’t help out with combat. The drawback is that it reduces your EMP like it was cyberware, an effect not listed in the custom rules. Etc, etc. The only thing spelled out clearly is the side effects, which seems like all the authors thought of drugs. All of them are nasty. Temporary stat loss, permanent stat loss, going catatonic. None of the drugs provided are worth taking. That’s not why we’re here. Instead, we’re going to make our own drugs. And not just any drugs, or any Hisenberg wannabe. This is a drug Jamie can make just by purchasing a Pharmaceutical+3 skill chip. We get a list of effects that a drug can produce. These will set our base difficulty. The most difficult are stat boosters (15) which increases the stat (REF, INT, or CL) by 1 per strength of drug. Other effects include enhanced perception, improved stun saves, improved healing, and, ahem, aphrodisiac, which is “-Strength to resist Seduction test”.  This game is nowhere near as gross as other games, but sometimes...Back on subject! A drug can range in strength from 1 to 3, which each point adding to the difficulty. After effect and strength, you select side effects, which reduces the difficulty of the drug (can’t go lower than 2). Finally, you select the drug’s duration, which multiplies the difficulty. 1d6+1 turns is x1, 1d6+1 minutes is x2, and 1d6+1 hours is x3. With all the rules explained, it’s time to hit the lab. The street cost of the drug is the difficulty times 25 eb. The drug we’re going to make will give +3 Reflex. That puts the base difficulty at 18. How do we reduce the difficulty? Well there’s a side effect that’s perfect for Jamie: Death. Every time a drug with this effect is taken, the user must make a death save with a penalty “equal to the drug’s strength number minus one”. So for a +3 strength drug, that’s a minus -2. But Jamie’s Death Save is 12, which means she is always going to make this save. Meanwhile, taking this side effect reduces the difficulty by 15, so now we’re down to only 3. With an x3 multiplier, the drug will last 1d6+1 hours, and the difficulty is still only 9. Jamie’s TECH stat is at 6, so between it and the Pharmaceutical skill chip (and discounting the 1-in-10 times RAW says she just shakes a container of Drano and chucks it on the floor), Jamie has effectively added +3 to her REF at the cost of 75 eb a session.  Lots of Star Trek references as it turns out Now what about someone that’s not as min-maxed as Jamie? There’s one side-effect that has negligible effects: Sterility. Taking a drug with this side effect has a 30% chance of making the user permanently sterile. That’s -8, which will reduce the difficulty of our REF booster to 10. With an x2 multiplier, it lasts 1d6+1 minutes, which can get through several combat scenes. This drug costs 500 a dose and has a creation difficulty of 20, which is attainable for a Med Tech optimized to make drug. Alternative, just make a REF booster with no side effects that lasts 1d6+1 turns, costing 450 a dose. Most combats are decided in the first couple turns, so even on a poor roll, a player will get major benefit out of it. As for making drugs with higher difficulties, I’m pretty sure there are later supplements that have drug labs that give bonuses to Pharmaceutical I won’t detail any of the other side effects, because they are really punishing, either giving temporary or permanent penalties to important stats or taking control away from the player (including attacking other players). No player would ever take drugs that have these affects, though I could see a clever one using these rules to create poisons to make enemies fight themselves. Back in part 4, I said that I was unsure how much mechanical support the Med Tech got. After these last two sections, I’d say that while the execution is lacking is some areas, there are enough levers for someone who wants to play a Med Tech to feel like they’re contributing. However, as much as I complained about this last chapter, I feel like that’s going to pale compared to what’s coming next. Grab your cyberdecks, kiddies - it’s time to hack the planet. Next Time: Loading.... SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 04:57
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It's been years since I read Cyberpunk 2020's hacking mechanics but I shudder at the sheer cruft and displacing party cohesion in store.
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Mar 14, 2019 07:52
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Mors Rattus posted:The Mantis, uniquely, live and die entirely by the sea. They have mastered water, earth and fire, learning from the many volcanos of their islands, which often bring steam, earthquakes and hot springs. As yet, none of them have erupted and threatened the clan, which has meant their wealth continues to grow. Trade and piracy fuel their ambitions for Imperial recognition, and the Mantis have excellent schools, high rate of literacy and education that doesn’t lose compared to the Major Clans, all on the fuel of the sea and the elements. The Mantis are starting to set off my Creator's Pet alarm. I suppose some of this is the natural consequence of being a step away from the Empire's usual weirdness (the sea presumably gives no fucks about your Honour stat, either the ship sinks or it doesn't).
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Mar 14, 2019 12:38
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Loxbourne posted:The Mantis are starting to set off my Creator's Pet alarm. I suppose some of this is the natural consequence of being a step away from the Empire's usual weirdness (the sea presumably gives no fucks about your Honour stat, either the ship sinks or it doesn't). Part of it is that their position is essentially 'on the verge of becoming a Great Clan.' They were a Great Clan in past editions, but the timeline has now been rolled back to just before that happened. In the old timeline, right as the Second Day of Thunder was about to hit and the Great Clans were going to war with Fu Leng, Yoritomo basically showed up with a bunch of minor clans backing him and declared 'either you recognize us as a Great Clan, or we will start a fight here that will make you lose against Fu Leng by wasting your resources beating us.' So now we're at the point where Yoritomo is forming his alliances, rather than after that.
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Mar 14, 2019 12:50
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Emerald Empire: Pirates of Penzance Ishiko no Dokutsu, the Cave of the Stone Children, was discovered after the tsunami of 1120 destroyed a shrine near Akagi Mori. The shrine, once used for good luck offerings and the blessings of children, had its name scrolls and placards wash up in a cove alongside small stones whose pitted markings resembled a sleeping baby’s face. A peasant couple named Asaji and Taketoki heard about these stones and believed them to be reincarnated children, so they went to the cove in hopes of finding their own lost child. They took the stones, scrolls and placards, putting them in a cave entrance near the cove. In their grief, they have come to believe that all of the “stone children” belong to them, and they now lurk in the area to ambush travelers, whom they fear will kidnap their “family.” The two have also taken to stealing food, offerings and clothes from local villages, and a few of the villagers have disappeared, murdered by the couple. All of the vanished had lost children, and most of the locals think they committed suicide in the ocean. Questioning Asaji and Taketoki about them isn’t super helpful, but the pair are starting to think about kidnapping real children, though they haven’t decided if they plan to sacrifice the kids or raise them. The cove is a rocky, treacherous place that is not easy to explore. It would be very easy to twist an ankle or fall on sharp rocks. The place never seems to see the sun, and even by daylight it is hazy, muted and sickly. The waters have strange currents that wash up detritus but can drag people underwater easily, into the tunnels full of sharp rocks. Many, many sharp rocks. The water is unwelcoming, and using it to bathe leaves one feeling sticky and unclean. The cave in which Asaji and Taketoki live goes deep into the cliffs, and within the air becomes foggy and ashy, though there is no heat or flame. Some of the tunnels are flooded, and all are tiny and claustrophobic. Even the couple haven’t explored much of the cave system, but if they did, they would start to hear the voices of children, laughing and whispering to them to continue their thefts and murders, until all children have died and joined them. Cave Rumors posted:
The Summerlands are wet marshes in Wakiaiai Province, full of reeds and cicadas. Travelers often visit at the end of spring, to hear the loud cries of the insects, and it is especially popular for scholars, priests and poets seeking inspiration – enough that a small cluster of inns have been built for them. The nice weather and flat land make for spectacular sunrises, and it’s a lovely retreat. Those who seek true solitude, though, head deep into the marshes to be surrounded by the sound of summer. Con artists often sell maps into the Summerlands, and most of them are just harmless fakes that lead nowhere in particular. A few, however, lead to bandit ambushes, and it is not especially rare for explorers of the marsh to find the skeletons of those who came before, slain by bandits or getting lost and starving. The marsh bandits are rather strange people. Some seem starved and frenzied, like maddened beasts rather than humans. Others are desperate, asking travelers what year it is and attacking when they don’t like the answer. A few even resemble the dead, pronouncing great dooms while dragging foes into the marsh. Maps are useless to begin with, as the marshes change annually with the growing of the reeds, and some say the land itself even shifts with the seasons. The muddy earth may suddenly become a deep pool that consumes an unfortunate traveler, and a more favored method of exploration is to join a team exploring. These teams head out in strings, each remaining in sight of the one just behind and the one just ahead, so that any of them can follow the line back. However, the drive to discover the new causes many to avoid such safe methods, wandering alone in the marshes. Every lone explorer tells a different tale of the Summerlands. One might speak of finding perfect torii arches that lead to Enlightenment, while others talk of finding a city of people that were half human and half snake or dragon, polite and welcoming but unable to tell what a human was. Others claim to find strange and unique treasure – silver chests, rare and perfect rice strains, swords made of dreams. However, no explorer has ever found the same thing twice. Our NPC is Uranaishi no Manami, Ambitious Pirate. She is one of the best pirates the Mantis have, but she hates it. She hates her own reputation and that of the Mantis, and she desperately wishes she could just be a normal, legitimate samurai. She is torn between three warring impulses – first, to be a simple fisher and sailor, second, to provide for her family and clan by continuing her piratical raiding, and third, to earn the respect and recognition of other clans. This means that while she is very smart, she is also extremely grumpy, basically all the time. She prefers to choose a single large, wealthy target over more smaller and easier ones, as this minimizes the amount of blood she must shed. If challenged on her decisions by her crew, she tends to grab and wrestle whoever started the problem, using her small but stocky and powerful body to prove her might. Her successes have proven a surprising amount of tactical skill, and she is rarely questioned any more. When the tsunami struck the Crane a few years back, she chose not to raid the villages and steal from the dead. Instead, she began rescuing survivors. While she has told her crew that she thinks the Crane may pay ransom for them, she has been treating her “prisoners” very well indeed, integrating them into a village near Toshi no Inazuma. There has been no ransom as yet, which may well be a harm to her reputation, but her crew remains loyal and well fed, so they have not complained. The Mantis as a clan, however, have mixed feelings about her act of mercy and particularly for taking responsibility for peasants that think of themselves as Crane. Some doubt Manami’s dedication, both to piracy and the Mantis Clan. Those jealous of her often bring up her softhearted ways, fearing her ambitions. She has openly discussed the idea of sending tribute and representatives to Otosan Uchi in order to have the Mantis raised to Major Clan status, and with each successful raid, Yoritomo is more likely to listen to her – and to select her as representative. Adventure seed! The PCs learn of a tsunami victim, the Crane courtier Asahina Hisayoshi, when a merchant delivers one of his netsukes, a sort of carved decorative button, from the wreckage. The Asahina desperately desire his safe return or at least information about his fate, and would like the PCs to help. When the PCs head out in search, however, strange things start happening. Winds push them off course, storms threaten their ship, water spirits attack in the night. Adrift at sea, the PCs will eventually manage to speak to the spirits, learning about Hisayoshi’s death. A Mantis pirate rescued him from the sea, but he demanded that the pirates also rescue heimin children swept up by the tsunami. The pirate refused, so Hisayoshi lept back into the sea to save them himself, perishing under the waves. The pirate and the spirits nearby were moved by this sacrifice and pledged to protect the children. These children, along with a small handful of adults, have been living on a Mantis island ever since. While the pirates have treated them well, the Mantis Clan is growing impatient, for no ransom or benefits have been forthcoming. Further, if the Crane learn about Hisayoshi’s death, they may now seek retribution. Next time: Player options.
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Mar 14, 2019 13:01
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Adeptus Evangelion A Choir of Angels So, it's finally time to get to our actual bosses! Yes, you have to get this far into the book before you actually have the material to run a combat at all. None of this is well organized. This used to be better in the V2 release, by the way; the angels were just where you'd normally expect to find bestiary in an RPG book. There wasn't a bloated scenario guide and all that other stuff between the actual rules about kicking rear end and the rear end you're intending to kick (if, indeed, such alien beings even possess asses). We get a little fluff on the angels; they've existed for about 15 years, because their embryonic cores were scattered around when Adam and Antarctica exploded. They lay dormant, waiting to grow and become proper cosmic horrors so they could come at NERV HQ one at a time in a march of monsters-of-the-week. Angels are the life-forms Adam intended to create, each one of them completely unique and protected by such a strong sense of self (AT Field) that it deflects every conventional weapon short of an antimatter mine. The only organ an angel really needs is its Core; everything else can be regrown, regenerated, etc. They don't need food, their S2 (Super Solenoid, whatever the hell that means) organs provide them infinite power. Their objective is to beat the hell out of your Evas and get at the macguffin they need to initiate 3rd Impact and raise Adam, so that he can get rid of all these goddamn Lillim and their goddamn tang and make a planet for angels. Angels have a bunch of general traits: Instead of Synch Ratio (they're not exactly synchronizing with themselves) they have Light of the Soul, because that's what the only angel to communicate coherently called his AT Field. They apparently contextualize it as a beautiful and sacred space wherein no other may intrude, which is actually quite interesting; if what Kaworu said about his AT Field is true, then angels generally want the total isolation of the self. But it's hard to make general statements about a highly individual species of unique aliens. The Light of the Soul works like Synch Ratio in generating ATS/ATP, but has different meta-effects. 1-50 LS gives an angel 1 reroll per combat per 50 LS. At 51-100, they also get +10 to everything. At 101-150, they double their TB. At 151-200, the +10 bonus is replaced with +20. And at 201+, the angel gets to take 2 turns a round. Being an alien creature with a totally alien mind, angels are completely immune to psychology. They also all get 1 Fate (which can be Burned to dodge any attack that should kill them or regenerate a body part and d10+TB HP to survive being taken out. They only heal their critical damage if they get out of crits with this heal) and can Fury like a normal PC. When they run out of Fate, they transition to a stronger state and gain Superior Action, reducing how long every kind of action takes and letting them take 2 attack actions in one turn. They also have immunity to blinding and physical loss of senses within short ranges, because they can sense via AT Field. This means that almost all standard status effects are useless against them, especially as (with the AT mechanics) combat is going to be at close ranges. An angel's natural weapons aren't Primitive and can Parry. You remember that 'go 2 times' ability? That also just turns off if you somehow blow one of the angel's limbs off. Most importantly, most angels using ATP to cast spells do not lose ATS by doing so. This makes AT using/magic angels extremely dangerous, especially as they get their own unique AT abilities. Curiously, most angels lack for Neutralize, but have some other way to blow through your comparatively weak AT Field. Crits against angels don't usually take them down for that long (unless you got the core) but they DO seriously gently caress them up. Lots of criticals will do things like 'halve the angel's TB for the rest of the fight'. No mention of if this is cumulative; if Asuka blows off both of an angel's arms, does it end up with 1/4 TB? I'm going to say yes. In keeping to the Prog Knife being a badass, Rending criticals are significantly more powerful than Energy or Impact; Explosive criticals are generally the most powerful. X Damage is a measurable advantage when you're going to need to crit the gently caress out of the angel over and over to disable it and kill the core. Also note that killing the core will usually make the angel explode in a massive cross/mushroom cloud depending on how hard you hit it. Evas will survive the damage. The surrounding buildings won't. Enjoy the collateral damage! After all that, we get game stats for every single one of the canon angels. Of them, only Sachiel (First Angel), Shamsel (Second Angel), Matarael (7th Angel, killed by Pallet Rifle!), I kind of GUESS Bardiel (11th Angel, inside a possessed EVA-03), and sort of Zeruel (Super powerful 12th Angel, killed and eaten by Berserk Shinji) died in what could be considered anything like a normal combat encounter. I mean, what are you supposed to do in the normal combat system against a giant singing diamond that can shoot you through a loving mountain (and that the designers gave a 90% BS and the +10 from LS, so it can't miss, and also added 'can't be dodged' to the shot). You shoot it with the GPC like in the show, I guess. Countersnipe the opera diamond. Or the orbital descent bomb angel. Or the orbital hallelujah insanity beam angel. Or the 'teleport you to another dimension inside itself' angel. Almost all of the canon angels required a gimmick to defeat because it was a monster of the week show, but also because the solution to a lot of the combat in Eva wasn't just 'be strong and powerful in combat'. The fact that the majority of their inspiration cannot, by their own admission, translate into the combat system they built should perhaps have been a loving warning they built the wrong kind of combat system. But you know, let's look at our big chonky boy Zeruel, since he's supposed to be a big late game boss for an Eva team and since he actually works as a big boss encounter within the context of the show. Zeruel is a melee specialist with 90% WS, 30% BS, his str doesn't matter once we get to his weapon, 50 Tough, 20 Agi, 50 Per, 40 WP, 10 Fel, and 160 LS, so he's at +20 to everything. He's AP 10 on body and head, 5 elsewhere, has 30 Wounds on his head, 15 on his limbs, 30 on his Core, and 45 on his Body. Any attack that can't completely negate his AV halves its damage and cannot Fury. So only GPC shots or boosted attacks with help from an ATT can actually seriously hurt him. Also can only take 10 wounds per hit, max. Also, he can just swap to Layered Field to give himself +8 AV everywhere so uh good loving luck hurting him if he does, even the Great Positron Cannon needs buffing to get through that. He also has Lightning Attack (and remember, is 100% accurate) and his weapons do not have Pen or damage; they just do d10 Critical damage Rending every stroke. Oh, and they can't be Parried, only Dodged. So you know, have fun with that. This is their idea of a mechanical challenge; an enemy you can only numberslam whose numbers are 'ignore most of the system'. Even a completely berserk super-powered Eva is just going to get torn apart; you kind of can't recreate how the fight went in the show, where once Eva-01 went completely loving berserk it just ripped Zeruel apart and ate him. Another note: Most of these angels were significantly strengthened from their V2 stats. Meanwhile, pilots lost the +15% WS and BS they used to get in the cockpit and their heavy weapons options were mostly seriously weakened. Zeruel, for instance, used to just hit pretty hard and ignore attacks that didn't have 6+ Pen, but didn't have the 'halve all damage and no Fury unless it completely pierces AV with Pen' horseshit. Also had a 75% to-hit instead. And could be parried. Also used to just grab your Eva and swing it and hit another Eva with it, and I can give some respect to a big boy angel whose power move is 'use a giant robot as a bludgeon'. Okay, maybe Zeruel's a bad example; after all, part of the point in the show is he'd basically won until Shinji's robot went completely nuts on him. Let's look at a way more normal angel, Sachiel. Sachiel is the first angel. He clocks in at 80 LS, 50 WS, 40 S, 40 T, 30 Agi, 20 Int, 30 Per, 20 WP, 10 Fel, with very Eva-like Wounds (5 Head, 7 Limbs, 10 Core, 20 Body) and light armor (1 on limbs, 4 on head, core, and body). He has some magic powers, but he's mostly a melee guy. Looks good so far, right? Then you get to his melee attack. d10+8 Pen 2 is powerful, but that's reasonable enough when he only gets 1 swing at 60% (really more like 70%, he'll probably aim) to hit. You can Dodge it, etc. But if he hits, you also take d5 Critical immediately to that location, do not stop, do not check DR. Also, his ranged attack does not need to roll to hit and inflicts d10+8 Pen8 Breach 8 on an area of effect that can only be Dodged and auto-confirms Fury. You remember when I said Asuka's impressive looking armor doesn't matter? This is the first angel. And remember, once he has to Burn Fate (which he can do to either regenerate a wounded body part to keep fighting or to Dodge an attack he's afraid will disable or kill him) he's able to do that AND the arm-ram slam every turn. He'll still get action economied to death since he doesn't have enough toughness to stand up to multiple Evas like Zeruel, but he's a nice example of just how much damage angels do. DR/toughness absolutely won't save you against them; we're in 'dodge or die' mode like normal DH. Also, for funsies, let's look at a non-angel enemy. The Mass Produced Evangelions from End of Evangelion. In that, recall, Actual Asuka takes out all 9 of them before they get back up and destroy Unit 2 while she's out of power. She does this in three and a half minutes. They mostly defeat her because they're hard to finish off, she's on a time limit, and there are 9 of them. Here? WS 50, S 40, T 40, Agi 50 for their stats that matter, and SR 60. With 6 Wounds Head, 8 Wounds Limbs, 13 Wounds Body and 5 AV everywhere else, 7 chest. But they're also highly talented Berserkers with Double Team, so when they outnumber you (and they will, there are 9 of them) they get +30 to hit (+10 base, +10 having Double Team, +10 buddy with Double Team) and all have Swift Attack (2 attacks). They also use a melee weapon that is either a Great Weapon (So 2d10+6 Pen2 Rending, already nasty) or can turn into a false Lance of Longinus (d10+8+SB (d10+12) Pen8 Breach 10 Rending Tearing), they all have a Fate point, AND THEY CAN FURY. Also they can fly, they can throw the lances, and they cause Fear (4) so Fear tests are at -30. Remember, all Pilots besides the ATT have Bad WP. You will get numberslammed. You will get numberslammed so hard. It's also time to talk about 'Tabbris'. This name is never given in the show, but apparently shows up in other approved material, and the way Tabbris is handled really tells you a lot about how they can't handle major story concepts or a non-boss fight/numberslam enemy. Tabbris is a designation given to Kaworu, the pilot brought in to replace Actual Asuka when she has a breakdown and can no longer pilot Eva-02. He's a mysterious boy with silver hair and red eyes, which if you know anime should immediately set off all your alarm bells. At the same time, he shows a great deal of affection for and empathy for Shinji, and the two become close very quickly. I believe he's the first and only character to tell Shinji he loves him. Soon, though, he reveals who he really is and takes control of Eva-02 without actually being in the cockpit, just floating next to it with his personal AT field. Because Kaworu is an angel. The last angel. While Shinji begs him not to and knife-fights Asuka's empty ride, Kaworu explains a bunch of stuff about what he is and what he's trying to do. Before suddenly realizing the thing crucified down in NERV HQ is Lillith, not Adam. Shinji manages to grab him out of the air, and Kaworu begs him to kill him, saying that only one pattern of life gets to live and essentially that he'd rather die than bring about the end of man and kill Shinji. There's a shot of Shinji just holding him for a full minute before he pulls the trigger and does it. As you might imagine, that event is a pretty loving important story event in the series! I mean it's Shinji being forced to kill the one person who offered him unconditional affection after finding out the guy he loved is an alien. You can see where maybe that would be a very pivotal moment. And also very specific to the original series, because Kaworu is a character and most of the storyline is about that character interacting with others. So let's see how they handle 'Tabbris'. They suggest several methods for your Tabbris, if you have one. One is 'The Reveal', where you suddenly get a suspicious new pilot exactly like in the show and then wham, Tabbris. For two, they suggest taking the Manu in your party aside and saying 'You're actually Tabbris and always have been' and then nerfing the hell out of them if they say 'I defy Adam and try to stay with the player'. Or for three, they suggest using him as an eeeeevil puppetmaster. Not a single word of their suggestions about him relate to how to actually write a character, or the interesting possible implications of an angel that appears human and is able to empathize with humans. Also, I've got to imagine that playing the whole campaign as a normal character and then having the GM suddenly decide 'oh no, all your backstory was made up, everything about your character is wrong, you're Tabbris' sucked. One of the most interesting moments that could be expanded on in the series, and...their concern is that if you're not careful, he'll too easily and cleverly sneak into Terminal Dogma and start 3rd Impact because your players could never catch or detect him. They still think of him as nothing but a gotcha or a boss fight. Gotcha Twists and boss fights are all these people have got Next Time: Deadhorsiel, the 69th Angel of Anger at the Protagonist Not Performing Masculinity Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Mar 15, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 15:16
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Emerald Empire: How 2 Imperial Our first new player option is the chance to play Imperial characters…sort of. The Imperial Families option is effectively a clan, but it does not include the Hantei. The Imperial Families, in this case, refers to the families that support the Hantei. They are often seen as mere adjuncts, for they are small in number and hold little land, but their power and influence is immense. They are directly tied to the Hantei, much more close than any Great Clan is. The Hantei proper are only the Emperor and their direct, immediate family. The three Imperial Families that are actually playable are the Seppun, the Otomo and the Miya. All have ties to the throne by a mix of blood, duty and history, and all have immense political and cultural power that stands well out of proportion with their numbers or wealth. All members of the Imperial Families are kuge, senior nobles, and so they stand apart from most samurai. They have greater access to the Emperor and the ranking Imperial authorities such as the Emerald Champion or Imperial Advisor, and what lands they do hold are protected from attack or seizure. Regardless of the status of whoever speaks to them, they must be addressed as ‘-sama’ and given the respect due to a samurai of higher status…with the exception of other members of the Imperial Families, senior Imperial officials, or the Emperor, of course. All PCs of the Imperial families automatically know generally about Otosan Uchi politics and can name Imperial family leaders, ranking bureaucratic officials and other notable figures in Imperial leadership, plus their political positions and allegiances. They automatically know Imperial history pretty well, especially as it applies to the deeds of the Emperor and the Imperial Families. They automatically know all proper etiquette and protocol in the Imperial Capital. The virtues of Bushido that they hold most dear are Duty and Loyalty, for these drive all they do. The ties of blood and service bind them to the Hantei line and hold them together. They hold Compassion to be least important, for the good of the Empire must always outweigh all other needs, no matter what. All three have high Status for starting PCs, plus pretty good Glory, and provide access to social skills (for the Miya and Otomo) or religiously-themed skills (for the Seppun). The Miya Family are the youngest of the three Imperial Families, formed after the death of Hantei. Miya was a loyal follower of Otomo, known for being a quick-witted and charming man who was quickly a court favorite. When the war on Fu Leng was won, it was Miya that delivered the news to Hantei as he lay dying. The Emperor ordered that Miya should continue to spread the news of the war’s end across the Empire, and as he did, he and his retainers helped in rebuilding the Empire, leaving hope and purpose wherever they went. When Miya returned to Otosan Uchi as a hero, the cunning Otomo saw an opportunity and convinced the new Emperor, Hantei Genji, to allow Miya, who was still loyal to Otomo, to found his own family. The Miya have ever been the smallest of the Imperial Families and the ones with the least direct influence on the throne. However, they are widely beloved across the entire Empire. Miya Heralds carry the edicts of the Emperor across the land, while Miya Cartographers survey the lands to make new maps that properly define the holdings of the clans. Thus, the Miya are trusted and welcomed essentially everywhere, even places where the Seppun or Otomo might be treated with wary fear. This makes the Miya the eyes and ears of the Imperials, recording what they see with a minimum of bias. Their generally guileless, open nature gives them unparalleled access to the entire Empire and also tends to mean they’re pretty safe when traveling. The Miya are often found serving in the Imperial Legions or the Emerald Magistrates, and their reputation both for loyalty to the Emperor and impartiality in dealing with the Clans helps in both jobs. Miya are also often found as arbitrators or judges for the same reason, overseeing anything from land disputes to duels to complex trials. The Imperial Herald is a hereditary Imperial office traditionally held by the Miya daimyo. The Miya also serve to deliver the Emperor’s Blessing, as the original journey by Miya has become known. It is now a formal event of rebuilding, annually carried out by carpenters and crafters drafted for the job and deployed to wherever the Empire most needs them, usually areas harmed by war or natural disaster. Competition to receive the Blessing is fierce, but its final decision sits entirely with the Emperor in consultation with the Miya daimyo. The Otomo Family were the second Imperial Family, after the Seppun. Otomo was the younger son of a tribal warlord, known for his clever tongue and his subtlety. Due to his formidable manipulative prowess, he was an expert at ending conflicts that threatened his tribe. His wit and cunning proved a great value to Hantei in uniting the many peoples that would become the Empire, and he was instrumental in the creation of the Miya family, which only enhanced his standing in the Imperial Court. His subtle, indirect approach to all parts of life has been the family’s trademark ever since. The job of the Otomo is simple: spread chaos and discord among the Clans. Several times in Imperial history, conspirators have tried to control the Chrysanthemum Throne, and in order to prevent the clans from ever uniting to gain influence or seize the throne, the Otomo employ many methods that are terrible, angering and harmful – even, sometimes, to loyal samurai. They are never malicious for the sake of malice, however. They see a greater good: security of the Hantei. That is what they have utterly devoted themselves to. They use flattery, favors, bribery, lies, blackmail – anything that will do the job. Many samurai consider the ruthless and manipulative actions of the Otomo to be unworthy of samurai and Bushido. The Otomo, however, consider themselves entirely essential to the Empire, keeping the clans off-balance and focused on their own rivalries so that they never threaten the Throne. There are no records of how many inter-clan conflicts have been pushed along by the Otomo, but it is surely many. The great danger, of course, is that the Otomo are imperfect humans, and so they may themselves succumb to the temptations of power and ambition. The family denies that such a failure has ever occurred, and acknowledge that it could, so they have put measures in place to prevent it. Certainly, some of them must watch each other, and most imagine life among the Otomo is constant intrigue and paranoia over each other, which the family never denies. Many Otomo serve in key positions in the Imperial bureaucracy, and the family is rival even to the Crane in being cultural leaders of the Empire. They know that every piece of art serves a political purpose, and they wield art as a weapon. Beauty is just another tool in their arsenal. It is a vitally important Imperial custom that any children of the Emperor that do not inherit the throne adopt the Otomo name after the Ritual of Abdication. These young Imperials typically join the Otomo family proper in a gempuku performed regardless of age. In this way, Otomo helped to preserve the Hantei line, so that if an Emperor ever died without heir, it would be possible to trace the blood back to the next most direct relative. This would almost always be an Otomo, who would then reverse the abdication and assume the throne as a Hantei. In this way, the Otomo maintain their subtle but powerful grip on power. The Seppun Family date back to the dawn of the Empire. When the Kami fell to earth, the place they landed came to be called Seppun Hill, for the first mortal to meet them. She was Seppun, and she was so moved by their arrival that she offered herself and all her followers as servants to the Kami. Hantei accepted her offer, and they were the first mortal followers of any of the Kami. While others may seek the favor of the Emperor, the Seppun have it merely by virtue of their blood. Some Seppun are courtiers or bureaucrats, but the most famous role of the family is to be the Emperor’s protectors. When the Kami fell, they took on some of the vulnerabilities of mortal form, and so the Seppun made it their duty to guard and protect the Kami. This has lasted until today, and the Seppun are some of the best bodyguards in the entire Empire as well as the greatest defenders of the Emperor. They are always prepared to die in place of the Emperor. This is not mere fanaticism – it is their family’s duty and reason to exist. To facilitate it, the Seppun have established two types of guard: the Palace Guard, also called the Seppun Honor Guard, who are the Emperor’s personal bodyguard that guard against physical threats, and the Hidden Guard, who protect against spiritual and supernatural threats. The Palace Guard stand amongst the finest warriors in the entire Empire, and focus all of their skill on the sole duty of protecting the Emperor. Defense is their ultimate purpose, and all of their tactics and techniques are to facilitate this. Even their mighty skill in iaijutsu is not intended for dueling but only to allow them to draw their weapons quickly in case of surprise attack. The Hidden Guard, on the other hand, are bushi and shugenja who devote themselves to study of the kami and Shinsei. They are no less ready to die for the Emperor in combating spiritual harm than the Palace Guard are in physical combat, and many of the Hidden Guard are masters of wards and spiritual defenses. They maintain close but discreet ties to the Kuni Witch Hunters, the Asako Inquisitors and the Scorpion Kuroiban. As with the Otomo, the Seppun do other jobs besides their primary one, and many bureaucrats are Seppun. They are also notable for their devotion to Shinseism, and Seppun herself was a fervent disciple of Shinsei. After her death, her children founded four temples in honor of Shinsei’s teachings, and to this day, the Seppun are among the foremost and most devoted Shinseists in the Empire. They also maintain an Imperial Library focused on thoughts, feelings and emotions of those involved in historic events rather than on strict history. These documents are highly subjective, but much can be learned from them about the people of the past. Next time: Imperial Schools
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Mar 14, 2019 15:31
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 "good news Terence, you are actually an angel and the time is right for you to betray your friends and exterminate the human race!" "what?""You heard me, betray your friends!"Is the new 'Dare you enter my enchanted forest'
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Mar 14, 2019 15:37
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Adeptus Evangelion Here come that Deadhorsiel loving finally, I can actually create a thread in-joke and I think you'll all be pleased with how he turned out. I can do it at the same time I show off how useless their official Angel Creation Subsystem is. First we choose an Order: Angels can be Warriors, Smiting, or Messenger angels. Warriors smash, Smiters shoot, Messengers status effect/mental attack. Deadhorsiel rolls a 24 on this table, and so is on 1-35%: Warrior. He is a tough angel of fight. Next we decide his Choir, which can be Guardian (Tough), Guide (AT), or Ruler (Minions). An 'Easy' angel won't have a Choir ability, but Deadhorsiel is being created with the Average angel rules. Easy angels also get -10 to all stats, Hard ones get +10 and ALWAYS have Superior Action, not just once they burn their Fate. Deadhorsiel does not deserve to be a Hard angel. He has a 75% chance to be a Guardian (it's the most common result for Warrior) and he gets a 69 (lol) making him a Guardian. Next he rolls for Physical Form. He could be Humanoid, Winged Humanoid, Bestial, Limbless Bestial, Flying Bestial, 'Artificial', or Hovering Artificial. He rolls a 02 and is a Humanoid. This gives him +20 base WS and +10 to his Light of the Soul. He has a 50% chance to be a hoverer, too, and it gives him Hit Locations Head, Body, Core, L Arm, R Arm, L Leg, R Leg. He is not a Hoverer. He also gets d5+3 AP on his Head, Core, and Body, and d5-1 AP on his limbs. Given all angels seem to have heavier Body/Core/Head armor and then lighter Limb armor, but also seem to have uniform values, I'll roll once and apply those to all locations. He gets AV 5 heavy locations, AV 0 Limbs. Deadhorsiel is not the mightiest of heaven's host. As he does not yet have a TB, I can roll his Wounds but not fully generate them. He'll have TB+4 Wounds on his limbs, TB+1 Wounds on his Core, (TBx2)+7 Wounds on his Body, and TB Wounds on his head. Much depends on Deadhorsiel's LS and Toughness. Finally, he rolls for Size relative to an Eva. With a 47, he is the size of an Eva and gets no modifiers from size. Next, he rolls d100s and checks a table for stats based on being a Warrior. He rolls a 97 for WS, which is a base of 60, +20 for Humanoid. Deadhorsiel has an 80% WS! He is a master of wars! He similarly rolls a 91 for BS, giving him 50%, his max as a Warrior Angel. He rolls a 34 for Str, and so only has a 30 Str. A 19 for Tough, so 30 Tough. This is not a good thing for Deadhorsiel! This is a bad thing! He needed TB! Continuing his cold streak with a 29, his Agi is 30, too. A 67 gives him 20 Int, but angels barely use Int so who cares. A 95 gives him 40 Per, but again, Per doesn't come up much in 40m tall robot fighting so, uh, good? 02 gives him a 10 WP. This pleases me: Deadhorsiel is a total coward. Not that it matters, he's immune to pretty much anything WP gets used for, but for flavor, I am pleased. A 12 also gives him 10 Fel, which is important: His Fear rating will only be 1, as Angel Fear is equal to their FB. A 05 faceplants his LS at 50+10, for 60. Shinji can completely Neutralize Deadhorsiel's bullshit field. Deadhorsiel did not turn out to be especially formidable. But his Bullshit Rolls might fix him! (They are not actually called bullshit rolls). He rolls for melee attack! A 45 gives him WHIPS. He cannot be Parried, and does d10+3 (SB), Pen 6 (lol, AV is useless) and a roll on the damage type says Rending. His Whips have Toxic on them as their special bullshit, so test Tough or take d10 damage to the affected limb that can't be reduced, when struck. He rolls his Guardian ability, and I should point out some of these are, uh, troublesome. +6 AV would be problematic for early game weapons, though Deadhorsiel is light enough that they might blow his limbs off anyway. Orbital would be...problematic for PCs who have no way into orbit. Aberrant Core renders the Core invulnerable to non-AT attacks so, uh, the party wouldn't be able to kill him. Luckily for them, he rolls 'has 2 Fate Points'. So he will simply need to taste the curb a little more before he actually dies. Other abilities for Guardians were stuff like +20 to Tough and can use Tough for Dodging. Finally, as difficulty adjustment, a custom angel gets 'CR points'. They get 1 per PC above 4 PCs (OD included), and then the highest Rank of the PCs-1. So a party of 5 at Rank 5 would have 6 CR. CR is spent on a pool of abilities, but each CR point also gives +10 LS and +3 Wounds on all locations. As Shinji and Nise Asuka will be engaging Deadhorsiel as a pair at Rank 1, and they do not have an OD (I had pondered making Central Officer Bradford, but he was too busy getting drunk and telling X-COM about the time he totally killed 80 aliens with his sweet hanzo steel to be available for OD work), Deadhorsiel will get none of these powers. These talents are things like 'Get Counter Attack and Wall of Steel so you can counter all melees' or 'Full Attack on the Charge' or 'increase stats a lot'. This is, by the way, the only point of 'difficulty adjustment'. Note Deadhorsiel already has a very high WS, and could have had much better stats already. Also, on a 96+ on his Light of Soul, he could have had 100+d10x10, so, you know, potentially more than Asuka and Shinji can ever breach as a 2 Eva team. There's no adjusting difficulty down besides the basic Easy angel. The randomized elements have no consideration for balancing. Also some of the CR points can royally gently caress specific players, like 'spend 1 CR for 1/2 WUP this battle' so gently caress you Skirmisher/Heavy Weapons character. Some of them specifically tell you to lie to players, as well, which is always good. Always lie to your players. It's not like GMing requires trust. You can also GAIN CR by taking Banes, weaknesses on the angel so you can buy big money prizes back in their strengths section. Banes are highly situational according to the book, and may not come up at all in the fight. Meanwhile, those big money prizes sure as gently caress will! Another wonderful spot where a GM can gently caress the players, right? 'You have d5 Rounds before it attacks, unless you attack it' is exactly equivalent to 'it has +20 Toughness', right? Finally we have some suggested names and a table of random physical characteristics. We already know our angel's name. I roll some traits (they say just roll as many as you want and roll until it 'feels right') and get that he's got an Uncomfortable Aura, his Core pulses and throbs with energy, he got them freaky backwards bending knees, spooky fangs, and he twitches constantly. So he's a twitchy, uncomfortable angel that seems to be hopped up on amphetamines, scampering around on his weird backwards legs and whipping around with his big bendy whip-arms while roaring a lot with his useless fangs. There he is, folks. 500 pages in and I've finally got a boss fight rolled up for the sample encounter. You might notice that this entire process was incredibly random. You might also notice that's not very good for something that's meant to be about creating heavily tailored, memorable boss fights. All the abilities you can roll are gimmicks, not real tactical abilities. It's simply hard to make a particularly strategic fight that isn't just Numberslam when you only have one enemy and more importantly, almost every fight is going to involve closing to Neutralize and/or shoot at close range so you can use your ATS. Every fight will revolve, to some degree, around the AT field. The various gimmicks are telling; they're almost all 'give it a higher number somehow'. That's what the authors think difficulty is; high numbers so your numberslam has a lower chance of slamming hard in your direction and there's a much higher chance you get numberslammed back. If I'm going to have numberslam, I'd rather this poo poo be fairly simple; when I ran the test-fight between Johan Schmidt and a Chaos Warrior it took me like 5 minutes to run it despite it going for 8 rounds, because it was simple to resolve. Here, a serious angel rather than a starter like Deadhorsiel is going to have a ton of abilities to reference, their AT powers, their multi-actions, etc. It'll all come down to Numberslam but it's got a lot of chaff thrown in the way to give the illusion of depth and that makes it take a lot longer. Which makes the Numberslam way more annoying. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with basic Numberslam; you just need to design around it and make things like target selection, movement, etc all count. Which they don't when your move is 'move close and Neut' and 'there's only one enemy piece on the field'. Next Time: The Fall of Deadhorsiel
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Mar 14, 2019 16:09
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By popular demand posted:
To be fair, they do say to account for the possibility that Ryuji the transfer student goes 'gently caress you, I'm in love with Rick and I'm going to resist Adam's call and stay with the pilots'. If you let that happen, you do that by greatly powering down Ryuji, like a JRPG boss that joins the party. It's more 'I just decide your character was X' without recourse to say 'No, I'm just a normal clone/attempted supersoldier' that's the really lovely part.
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Mar 14, 2019 16:11
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Poor Deadhorsiel, thought of Lilim and died
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Mar 14, 2019 16:15
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Adeptus Evangelion At last, fanfiction! So, it's a sunny day in Tokyo-3 when Shinji arrives at the base to meet his dad. It's also a sunny day with a high chance of coked up kaiju, so Deadhorsiel is currently running around and making me roll for where he's intercepted while Shinji has an awkward introduction with the badass supersoldier that's going to be his wingman in this timeline. So while Nise Asuka's showing off lifting a munitions crate above her head and trying to be friendly with the nervous kid, we're rolling to see what Deadhorsiel's up to. He's detected on land, in the forests and mountains outside of Tokyo-3. They start the emergency building recess while Gendo shows up to tell his son to get into the robot and emotionally blackmail him with a wounded Rei, just like in the show! UN troops go out to get stepped on as the Defense Line phase begins. Shinji also rolls vs. his depression and gets a 21, so he's able to shake it off. Good work, Shinji. Unfortunately for them, Deadhorsiel is completely immune to their attacks and cares not for their horseshit, so he's just going to book like crazy straight through all the conventional forces while screaming something that might translate to 'ANNNNNNOOOOO' the entire time. Now, RAW, he has to cross the 1km defense line, so 100dam. At a flat run, it takes Deadhorsiel 5 rounds to pass through the Defense Line without stopping to fight the useless tanks. Maybe he steps on some people on his way, I don't know. Checking the Defense Line results, this is an EXCELLENT BATTLE! The pilots get +3 to Initiative and +10 to Fear tests against Deadhorsiel, because they know he can be slowed down! Despite him, uh, running flat out the entire time. He was just too slow. Defense Line is poorly thought out. They also get to meet him where they choose when the fight starts, gear in hand, and get two MAGI scans for him being such a slow silly angel. The UN troops are really relieved I decided to use this to show off how stupid Defense Line is. They meet him on the Base of Operations ground, plugged in, with Shinji up front and party time Nise Asuka warming up her chaingun in the back. Shinji starts the fight in Neutralization range, Asuka starts at 25dam so she can warm up the chaingun (and get +10 to hit from range). Shinji rolls his WP, and does it at +10, because he's had some time to steel himself; it's good! Shinji makes his Fear test and DOES NOT RUN AWAY! Asuka rolls hella high on Init and holds fire, laughing madly over the radio. Shinji Neutralizes the angel, wiping out its entire AT field, and doesn't bother with his other action; he'll let the angel come to him. Asuka, however, after god knows how many updates, opens fire with her goddamn chaingun. And misses. She rolls Fate. And gets a 30. Now that doesn't sound great, but let's look at her to-hit here. She's base BS 40, +5 for multieyes. BUT this is DH1e, so her Full Auto is +20 to hit. AND she's in good range, so she's at +10 for that. So she needed a 75. She gets 4 DoS. Her gun hits 1+DoS times, up to its shots fired of 5. She hits with every single slug of the burst, and she starts in on Deadhorsiel's head. She puts, according to the DH table, 2 in his head, two in an arm, and one in his chest. Headshots inflict 12-7=5 and 11-7=4 Wounds, which puts him on Crits in the face. Serious crits. Arm shots inflict 13-3=10 and 10-3=7 and oh man his entire left arm is coming off. Body shot bounces but they can't all be winners. Deadhorsiel, in the first burst of effectively Pallet Rifle fire from the chaingun, has just eaten poo poo. He takes Critical 2 and 6 to the head, and Critical 10 on his left arm. He, uh, Burns a Fate to try to heal the arm loss because holy poo poo man that was going to get him curbstomped (Halved TB, stunned d5 rounds, prone) but Asuka's headshots still stun him for a round. His arm just *barely* regenerates to 0 Wounds, negating the critical hit. He's wobbling, trying to figure out what the gently caress just happened, and spends his turn stunned. Asuka keeps firing because hell yeah! She jams her gun. She spends Fate, swearing at it, and gets a 15! Which means she starts in the Body, goes into the Arm, wobbles to the Head, hits the Arm again, and then hits the Body. Also, hasn't missed a shot! The joy of Fate Points and old DH Full Auto. How did they not know this was busted? She tinks off the body, but does 13 wounds in one blow to the right arm, FURY CHANCE on the head, 11 more wounds to the arm (man, there goes another arm), and 5 Wounds to the body. She fails to Confirm fury but doesn't care. Deadhorsiel spends his second Fate to pretend she missed outright. He is mad and charging his power aura (though also still stunned until it's his turn). That's when Shinji charges. And stabs him in the arm. Since he's Stunned, he can't parry it. Shinji delivers 4+3+4-3=8 Wounds right to his wounded left arm, meaning Deadhorsiel loses the arm and takes -1/2 to TB. The angel is now extremely pissed, finally gets a turn, and tries to murder Shinji. He, uh, misses with a 95. He tries again! And hits! Shinji, with 0 Dodge Skill, rolls a 08 and dodges aside. Asuka uses her last Fate after almost shooting Shinji in the back and, uh, also gets a 08. Every single shell lands, again, (despite the -20 for shooting into melee) this time on Deadhorsiel's legs, body, arm, and head. Off comes a leg from that lowered TB. Still dings off his body, does 14 wounds to an Arm, and then blows off his loving head. Deadhorsiel has now lost his arm, his leg, and his head. Deadhorsiel is now stunned for d5+d10 rounds, blinded, his head has exploded like a melon, and he is praying for death. At this point, Asuka drops her chaingun, she says something about finishing strikes, Shinji doesn't know what it means, and the two of them proceed to make the helpless angel taste the curb for a couple turns of called shots with their knives and feet until they break the core. Eventually inflicting Crit 5 on it, as Shinji delivers the final blow. Deadhorsiel's terrible Toughness is his undoing once again, as he rolls a 50 on his Tough or Die test and his core cracks and he dissolves into blood. He doesn't even manage to explode. Deadhorsiel you were the worst angel ever. The team has slain Deadhorsiel! Asuka puts up one giant robot hand. Shinji hesitates a moment, then realizes her intent and gives her a high five. They suffer 2 Collateral for moving the Evas up, but, uh, 0 besides that, so flawless victory with 20 Research and 25 Surplus. They then find out they're expected to live in lovely little apartments despite saving the goddamn world with a goddamn flawless victory. Barudak posted:Poor Deadhorsiel, thought of Lilim and died Basically what happened. You would not believe how cathartic it was to watch that guy taste the curb. Note: Example battle really not all that indicative of normal AdEva gameplay, but goddamn was it funny. MVP is Asuka's Fate Points. Next Time: Original Angel, Do Not Steal Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 16:59
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The Rifter posted:Warning! In the year 2000, Palladium will publish a Y2K-themed game called Systems Failure. The Rifter posted:Violence and the Supernatural It's about alien bugs that infest technology at the turn of the millennium. The Rifter posted:The fictional Worlds of Palladium Books® are violent, deadly and filled with supernatural monsters. Other dimensional beings, often referred to as "demons," torment, stalk and prey on humans. Other alien life forms, monsters, gods and demigod, as well as magic, insanity, and war are all elements in this book. I'm not reviewing that game right now. (Or probably ever, but never say never.) Some familiar folks covered it here, if you're curious. The Rifter posted:Some parents may find the violence, magic and supernatural elements of the game inappropriate for young readers/players. We suggest parental discretion. But I figure it's worth mentioning that point we're about to hit. The Rifter posted:Please note that none of us at Palladium Books® condone or encourage the occult, the practice of magic, the use of drugs, or violence. However, even after the Y2K space bugs brought apocalypse to the world, Kevin, not relying on computers yet, could still publish games.  The Rifter Rifts Round-Up Special '99, Part 1: "This section was inspired by and is dedicated to the members of The Confederate Air Force." ... an organization that changed their name shortly after the turn of the millennium, as for some reason they felt it had unwanted baggage. As aforementioned in the last round-up, because most of this is unofficial material, I'm only really noting it rather than doing a full dive.  The Rifter #1 posted:Optional and Unofficial Rules & Source Material Please note, that the vast majority of rules, tables, characters, equipment, adventures and stories are "optional" or "alternative" things one can include in his campaign or enjoy reading. They are not "official" to the main games or world settings. For example, the excellent story, Siege Against Tolkeen, is likely to be very different than Siembieda's "official" world book(s) when it comes out. Likewise, Siembieda had not considered putting high-tech Wolfen in Italy and may not include them in any "official" sourcebook. As for optional tables and adventures, if they sound cool or fun, use them. If they sound funky or inappropriate for your game, ignore them. In other words, this stuff is even rougher than Palladium's usual output... but at the same time, sometimes it's a cut above, depending on the writer. This covers The Rifter issues #5 through #8, published in 1999. There's no "official" material I'll be covering this time around - it's all "unofficial", or would be covered elsewhere.  The Rifter #5 Kevin Siembieda, The Rifter #5 posted:Hey, while I have your attention, I'd like to comment on something. Wait. Where the gently caress is Rifts Timbuktu? Get on top of that, Siembieda.  "We've only got a year left! Get all the '90s in one pic that you can!"
 CSI: Tolkeen. The Rifter #5 posted:"You don't know who the Seven Governors of R'yleh are?" asked the psychopath, drawing a vibro-blade. The old man could feel an intrusion in his head. It was like the stranger was...stealing his thoughts. "You really ought to know that!" snapped the madman, advancing slowly. A variety of books are promised but never released: Rifts® Scotland, Rifts® Australia Two: Mystic Australia™, Rifts® Australia Three: Dreamtime. Rifts novels by Adam Chilson are threatened to be put upon us, soon enough. But still, never a sign of Rifts® Timbuktu. The Rifter #5 posted:We are currently looking for suitable printers and venues to sell the items. Apparently, game stores and distributors are leery about selling Rifts® novels even though we keep telling them that everybody wants them and that they'll sell like hotcakes. So let your favorite hobby, game and comic shops know that you're dying for Rifts® Novels, and that they can count on you for a sale. I can't say I buy hotcakes too often, myself. They're just too cheap and easy to make at home.  Next: Math problems. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 17:18
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Emerald Empire: Making Maps The Miya Cartographer is an Artisan/Courtier school. They travel through the Empire to gather information and update the Imperial maps. Of course, Rokugan doesn’t use any standard coordinate system, so they have to develop their own methods for accurate measurement of distance and direction, usually involving pacing and landmarks, star positions and so on. Their maps are more works of art than exact charts, and the margin of error usually increases the further they get from the capital. Either way, the Cartographers have standing authority to travel anywhere they want, regardless of clan borders or other boundaries, and often spend a lot of time in remote or uninhabited areas to make their observations. They are self-sufficient, though they often travel with retainers or yojimbo, and not only study academic topics like writing or art but also athletics, stamina and survival skills. They must always be ready for privation and hardship, given how much time they spend in the wilds. They get excellent scholarly and social skills mixed with some survival skills, and are able to learn Kata, Rituals and Shuji, with a focus on Air and Earth Shuji plus Katas as their mainstays. This gives them a solid mix of martial and social skills that are generally usable in any situation they may find themselves in. They also have decently high starting Honor, at 50. They also get either a free servant or a free pony. Their basic technique is Well Traveled. They always know which way is north, and can always find a landmark useful for navigation. Further, when making any check to remember or gain geographical, political or societal information, they may add a number of kept dice set to any combination they choose of Success or Opportunity results to their roll equal to their school rank. Their capstone ability is Emerald Explorer. Once per scene as a Support action, they can make an easy Survival check targeting someone in the scene. That character, plus one more per bonus success, can ignore all negative terrain effects until the end of the scene. The basic technique is, I think, the more useful of the two – there are a lot of rolls that it applies to and they’re usually quite helpful ones. Emerald Explorer’s a bit niche, but capstones are allowed to be – hitting rank 6 is basically its own reward, and rank 6 Well Traveled is itself already completely loving insane. The Miya Herald is a Courtier school. They serve both as messengers of the Emperor and as historians, as it is their duty to strictly and objectively record everything they experience. More than a few samurai have attempted to deceive them or conceal things from them, only to be horrified to learn that the Miya recorded exactly what they were told and what they saw – including all attempts to deceive and obfuscate. The duty of the Miya is to move through the Empire, delivering messages accurately and in succinct form. They may cross any border and must not be delayed in their duties, and while they learn self-defense, their primary focus is on speed and evasion, to better be able to arrive early and without harm to themselves or their messages. They speak with the words of the Emperor, giving them great authority, and only the most influential or foolish would ever openly say they were lying or wrong. They get good social skills and decent survival skills, and have access to Kata, Shuji and Rituals, with a heavy focus on Shuji of all types except Fire. They have few personal combat skills, though they don’t entirely need them due to their school technique being very handy in combat. They also get Honor 50, and like the Cartographer, a free attendant or pony. The basic technique of the Herald is Voice of the Emperor. Once per round, after anyone nearby succeeds on an Attack or Scheme action, the Herald can give them [school rank] strife. Which is amazing. The Herald doesn’t even have to be in the conflict to do it, as far as I can tell! All they have to be doing is standing nearby. A Herald on your side during a duel can just keep dropping sick burns on your opponent until they check. I think? I’m not sure if the rules actually work for that but as a GM I’d certainly allow it. Their capstone is Blessings of the Emperor. Once per scene, they can make a Scheme action and a difficult Command check targeting a number of characters in the scene based on their Glory. If they succeed, then until the end of the scene, all targets must forfeit a lot of Honor and Glory to target the Herald with an Attack action, and the difficulty of Attacks on the Herald goes up by 2, lasting until either the scene ends or the Herald attacks one of the affected targets or their allies. The Herald can also spend Opportunities on the Command roll to apply the effects to attacks the targets make on allies of the Herald. Both of these techniques are extremely good, though Blessings of the Emperor isn’t an easy roll without a lot of Command skill and Air Ring. The Otomo Schemer is a Courtier school. They are the ultimate politicians, attending courts across the Empire to advance the agendas of Imperial politics. They are ruthless manipulators, using their great skill to earn favors, gain allies and destroy foes. The ends of preserving Imperial power justify any means, almost always. This is the credo of the Otomo. They get excellent social and knowledge skills and…look, these guys are pretty pure social. It’s their one job. They get access to Kata, Rituals and Shuji, but they’re never going to be really great at fighting. They focus mainly on Water, Air and Fire Shuji, and their Honor is surprisingly high – 45, rather than sub-40. They get a free attendant (but no pony). Their basic technique is Necessary Actions. First, an Otomo Schemer never loses Honor or Glory when lying or deceiving others for the good of the Emperor and Empire – as determined by the character’s beliefs and opinions. However, they lose double the normal amount of Honor and Glory when lying for their own personal gain…again, as determined by the character’s own beliefs and opinions. Therefore, they are encouraged to ensure that their own gain and the good of the Empire are the same thing. Second, whenever anyone has to stake or forfeit Honor or Glory to act against the Schemer’s desires, the Schemer can increase that amount by their school rank. This is a powerful technique – as long as your foes care about their Honor and Glory. Which most will! It actually functions especially well against low-Honor foes, because no one actually wants to hit Honor or Glory 0 and get a ton of disadvantages; even most low-Honor or low-Glory characters want to hover just above that position most of the time. Their capstone is Majesty of the Throne. Once per scene, they can make a Scheme action and a Command check targeting any number of characters nearby, with a difficulty based on the highest Status among the targets. If the check succeeds, all targets become Dazed (+2 difficulty to Attack and Scheme actions) and Disoriented (+2 difficulty to all Movement and Support actions). This is pretty powerful, and essentially lets an Otomo Schemer drop a giant bomb on foes during a scene, especially low-Status foes, to allow their allies to then handle them all easily. The Seppun Astrologer is a Shugenja/Artisan school. They are the face of the Hidden Guard, protecting the Imperials from spiritual threats. They learn and study all manner of magical practices, but specialize in astrology and divination so that they can predict and anticipate threats rather than working purely reactively. Besides astrology and calling on the elemental kami, they also utilize kawaru (divination by casting and reading the patterns of small objects), omen-reading and other esoteric practices. They also work extensively with wards to protect against magical intrusion, and coordinate heavily with the Palace Guard. They get good knowledge skills and access to Invocations, Rituals and Shuji, with a focus on Water, Earth and Air Invocations above all else. They are the lowest Honor of any Imperial school, at 40. No servant or pony. Their basic technique is Just As Predicted. At the start of each session or during any downtime period, they can make an easy Theology check. If they succeed, they can then set aside up to their school rank in kept dice. Until the next downtime or end of session (whichever comes first), whenever anyone makes any skill check using the same ring as their Theology check they can replace any amount of kept dice with an equal amount of dice of the same type that they reserved from their prediction. This is extremely powerful if somewhat limited by what Ring you use and which dice you pick, because it can function either to buff allies or debuff enemies. Their capstone is Foreseen in the Stars. Once per session, they may spend 1 Void to reveal that they have foreseen an event in the scene. They can then retroactively declare any preparations they have made, subject to GM approval, though if any of those preparations would require a roll (like having a ward prepared) they have to make the rolls to see if they worked. The Seppun Palace Guard is a Bushi school, the personal bodyguards of the Emperor and many Imperial officials. They are utterly devoted to protecting their charges, unhesitating in their willingness to step into danger even at the cost of their own lives. To do this, they train until they are among the greatest warriors of any in the Empire, able to react to anything, no matter how sudden. They are eternally patient, trained to stand motionless for hours on end but remain perfectly aware of their surroundings and ready to act at the first hint of any threat. They get access to Kata, Rituals and Shuji, with Katas being their main focus. They have excellent combat skills and decent if limited social skills. No pony, no servant. They have good Honor, at 50. Their basic technique is Speed of Heaven. When they succeed on an Initiative check in a skirmish or duel, they get bonus successes equal to their school rank. This isn’t flashy, but it is very good – going first is an extremely powerful thing, always, in any L5R edition. Their capstone is The Clouds Part. Once per round, they can spend 1 Void to add bonus successes based on their Honor to any successful Attack or Support action check. That’s very good, though limited by Void points, and means that when they really need to, they can ensure they get what they need to do done. Next time: Monks and Liars
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Mar 14, 2019 17:22
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
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Mar 14, 2019 17:24
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Adeptus Evangelion Teleports behind u The Archangels are a collection of 'mechanically complex' original 'super angels' for 'advanced groups'. I could go through all the dozens of pages of tedious OC angels. I really could. I'm not going to, because I don't need to. The final angel, the one they think is the goddamn coolest possible final boss fight, is all I need to dunk on this poo poo. Because on every level of his design, from his fluff to his abilities to even how he looks, Keter is just the perfect encapsulation of this game. So without further ado, let's get to the angel of the Crown. So, first off, the name. It's a name from the highest point of the Sephirot, which I do not know much about because it's past the period of Jewish religion I studied (I am a 2nd Temple man), but from what little I know I believe it refers to the Divine will to create? Mors can almost certainly correct me or explain more. The source they probably used for it is the SCP Foundation website, though, where 'Keter' classified devices and phenomena are potential existential threats. Because that's all this boy is going to be. He's got nothing to do with perfection or divinity, he's just a big 'ole murder machine. But you know, that's fine, all the names and mythological references are just window dressing, right? They describe him as requiring 'a theoretical mathematician and several whiteboards to describe!' because he's so incomprehensible and spooky! They have a picture. He's just a floating golden Eva with some spikey wings sticking off him. That's it. He's nothing special at all. There's no a single ounce of creativity to his visual design, no matter how much they throw around 'non-euclidean' or 'extra dimensional'. He's just a generic giant robot, no different from your Evas except that he's bigger and has higher numbers. You'll first discover he's stomping about when you find an entire city dead and all its people turned to tang to try to raise the stakes. He's made of magic supermaterial that's golden and shiney and doesn't exist in this universe, and only one piece of him will be in the universe at a time. He spreads a huge, ever-growing Anti-AT field and you have to get in there and fight him before he spreads it to the whole world and turns everyone into tang. You're also forewarned that NERV's science team should know all his powers except one and warn the players of how No, it's 'what decisions, tactically, can the PCs make to give themselves a better chance of winning?' So, let's get Ketty's statblock out of the way first. One thing I notice: They almost exclusively use pure multiples of 10s for stats. I suppose they just like round numbers, but I also remember some of the people there whining that they wished DH was a 'd10 based system' because 'it should be anyway' and 'what's 4% actually matter if it doesn't get you a point of stat bonus' (It matters about 4%). Anyway, Ketty's rolling in at 70% WS, 70% BS, 60% S, 100% T, 50% Agi, 40% Int, 70% Per, 40% WP, 30% Fel, and 250% Light of the Soul. He's got Awareness+10, Dodge+10, and a typo: They actually forgot to double his TB for his Light of the Soul, so I don't know if that's intentional or not. It's going to be pretty important later, but by normal RAW he should have 20 TB. He also has Lightning Attack, because of course he does. His special weapons are his Arms, his Wings, and his Head; which item is sticking out of the warring sea of UNTIME he usually exists in is which item he can shoots/slash with right now. Now, he's also got some unique abilities. Impossible Composition makes it so any limb that isn't actually in reality double its TB, so effectively 40. Anything not exposed is basically invincible. Quantum Physiology lets it pull a limb back and put out a new one in response to an attack, so the attack hitting that limb probably deflects off from Impossible Composition. The End Is Nigh makes him turn into a second, totally exposed All Core form is all his Limbs or the main Body are destroyed. This also doubles his Light of the Soul instantly, making him 500, meaning you're going to need 45 or so ATS to actually break him down to where you can fight him again so I hope you have a large party or you've gotten a lot of positive Synch disruption. Finally, Weep and Bear Witness lets him expand his magic Anti-AT field at a rate of d5 km per hour. Remember how one function of an Anti-AT field mechanically is to do 2d10 unreducable damage to every enemy in the field? He can do that to you once per 3 rounds. He can also fire a Remiel (Opera Diamond) Positron Beam (which basically does ATS Pen and Damage, no roll) at anything within his Anti-AT Field at any time. One of the 'challenges' in reaching him is meant to be getting to the center of his field before those 90% positron shots kill your party, which is a challenge that involves hoping he rolls badly, because you also *can't Dodge this attack*. His arms aren't anything special physically: They do d10+6 Pen3 Tearing, but they add up the damage die and reroll and inflict that much Insanity on the pilot hit. No save. Which A: Causes Synch Disruption and B: That's 2-20 Insanity a swing. This is meant to be late campaign, in a game that loves the stupid Insanity rules. You're probably showing up with 50-70. At 100 you die. His Head fires a shot that does 0 damage, but 'save with Tough or be Stunned 1 round' and inflicts 2d10 Insanity, just like the arms. You cannot dodge this or react to it or save against it in any way. His Wings fire like an assault rifle, doing S/3/6 fire rate and d10+5 Pen5. They don't do a ton of damage, though they're respectable. They also inflict d10+1 per hit Insanity, of course. And cause you -10 to all tests per hit (Max -30) until his next turn. Also recall: He goes twice at all times. Now, he is beatable: You saw what happened to Deadhorsiel when he started losing limbs, and at AV 5 and 15 Wounds his limbs can be blown off, especially by Fury. He still suffers normal critical effects. But also remember, it's entirely up to him what limb he's showing at the time. You can't focus fire on a limb, and you have no control over target selection. None of the limbs, etc are especially vulnerable. There's no cue to figure that out during the fight. You just keep slamming his numbers and hoping you slam harder before his many AoEs and IP inflicting attacks drop you. You're also explicitly forewarned of everything about him except that you're going to have to deal with an ATS 50 rear end in a top hat second phase that can slam down undodgeable 100% (I forgot, he counts as Short Range at all times when firing) Damage 50 Pen 50 shots. In addition to the high accuracy Insanity causing attacks (or the explicitly unstoppable one) and the 'every 3 turns, 2d10 unblockable undodgeable' field. Oh, and his writeup on how to use him also implies he can make all 3 of his normal attacks every round after he's Burned Fate, so Burning Fate to become his 'all Core' form actually does count as him getting his limbs back for Celerity purposes. So he's got 4 actions a turn at that point and you can't reduce them until you kill him. This also means that all his critical damage might go away in the form transition if your GM decides the wishy-washy rules writing means that. There's no actual strategy. He's just a pile of high numbers and gimmicks that all end up coming back down to NUMBERSLAM. Their big, complicated JRPG super final boss that they're really proud of is just 'roll dice and hope'. There's no tactics, there's no actual theme or concept behind him, he doesn't tell you anything about the characters by how they fight him or how they defeat him. He's just a flying golden Eva with a shitload of numbers to slam on you. He's completely creatively, mechanically, and conceptually bankrupt, and I can't think of a better final boss for this game than this piece of poo poo. Everything about him is totally non-interactive. It's just big numbers! So the answer to our question from before is 'nothing'. There's nothing you do. No decisions you make. You just hope you get lucky as you fire/slash away. They also have a backpatting little bit of writing where 'Welllllll, if you REALLLLY want to make him MORE POWERFUL so you can be crueler to the players (because what GM pulls punches on the FINAL BOSS!?) it's a hellworthy sin and raises the divorce rate worldwide if you do it, but just give him every AT power and let him teleport if your PLAYERS don't play FAIR' and really, gently caress you, you idiots. So, seeing as this is the final mechanical update of this review (everything else is pretty much all just fluff, a few apocalypse scenarios and some final thoughts) let's use this to talk about Boss Fights in an RPG. What's the role of a big ole' boss fight? I'd say it depends a lot on the mechanical and tactical complexity of your game. If you have a game where you don't have many meaningful decisions in combat like AdEva, then the purpose of a boss fight is actually drama. You're here to have a threatening looking enemy to numberslam with (or an enemy with a gimmick whose numbers are easy to slam after it's figured out) while you reveal character relationships and have dramatic moments. Only in a system and situation where you have lots of actual complexity to work with and multiple levers of mechanical decision making to pull is a boss fight really about 'challenge'. Because otherwise, the challenge is solely 'roll well'. Keter's entire challenge is 'roll well'. If I go into a fight I have a 10% chance to win, and I can't do anything mechanically to make those numbers better, the system and story better start planning for what happens if I lose. Because that's not a challenge, it's a longshot with 'you'll probably lose and then we'll need to decide what happens' attached to it. Hell, the GM doesn't even have anything interesting to play with with Keter. This is one of the reasons AdEva's combat is so bad. It wants to be about epic battles and hand-crafted boss-fights, but it's welded to a system that can't handle that, it doesn't know how to present that anyway besides big numbers, and the one-on-party nature of the fights doesn't leave much room for tactics as it is. And their response to trying to build an engaging combat is to build a complicated one, except it still boils down to 'roll well'. Keter is the perfect note to end the mechanical part of the review on, with his for-this-fight subsystems and lack of actual decisions, theme, or visual appeal, because he's goddamn everything wrong with the game in one spectacularly dull JRPG boss. Next Time: Third Impact.
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Mar 14, 2019 18:37
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Emerald Empire: Making Monks Besides the Imperials, there’s a few other new schools. Two new monks and two…well, we’ll get to them. The Fortunist Monk is a Monk school, and our first option for being a non-Togashi or Kaito monk. They are monks that focus on worship of the Fortunes, from the highest to the lowest. They are not shugenja, and so cannot sense the kami with the ease that shugenja can, but they are devoted to serving and understanding these divine spirits regardless. While they may lack in the secret lore of the shugenja families, those that bear the favor of a Fortune may often find the kami obeying their prayers regardless, granting them access to powerful elemental effects. They get a mix of social, knowledge and combat skills, and access to Katas, Rituals and Shuji. They do not get Kiho, which remain the province of the Togashi ise zumi and the Shinseist monks. They begin with only Honor 40, because…monks. They focus on Air, Earth and Water Shuji, plus some Katas…in theory. In practice, they’re going to rely a lot on Invocations. How? Their techniques. Their basic technique is Blessing of the Fortunes. They select one Fortune that is their primary one, and get one free Invocation appropriate to that Fortune which they meet the rank prerequisite for. The game gives lists for the Seven Great Fortunes as examples, with GMs intended to come up with lists for lesser Fortunes if the PC wants to serve one of those instead. Each time they rank up, they get a new free Invocation. Further, any time they make a check to use one of their free Invocations, they get their school rank in bonus successes. This means they’re basically the best at using whatever Invocations they have, but their selections are much more limited than a shugenja’s. Their capstone is Favor of the Fortunes. Once per scene, they may importune for an Invocation they don’t already have without the normal costs or difficulty increases for doing so, and may use Meditation rather than the normal skill required for that Invocation when doing so. Because, y’know, why wouldn’t you want to be a kung fu wizard? The Shinseist Monk is a Monk school dedicated to the teachings of Shinsei, the Little Teacher. It is rather more inward-focused than worship of the Fortunes, seeking Enlightenment within. All came from Void, and to Void all shall return, so all distinction is in truth illusory, if you can but overcome your limits. Therefore, the Shinseist monk can tap into the elements to produce apparently supernatural effects solely by their understanding of the world. This is oneness with the universe – and so it is natural, not supernatural. If you ask the monks, anyway. They have access to Kata, Kiho and Rituals, with focus split between Katas and Earth, Water and Void Kiho. They have good social, knowledge and combat skills, like the Fortunist monk, but will end up a bit more combat-focused because of their Kiho. Like the Fortunist Monk, they are Honor 40. The basic technique is Embrace the Void. When they spend Void by the normal Void spending rules, they can use their school rank in place of the skill they are using. If their skill would be equal or better, or they have the skill at 5, they instead get one free Opportunity result on their roll. This is pretty decent – it lets them be competent at basically anything if they want to spend Void on it, and as monks they probably have high Void. Their capstone is One with the Void. Once per scene, they may use any Kiho they don’t already know, using Meditation in place of the normal skill required for it. This essentially means that at rank 6, they know every Kiho, because the way Kiho work is that you can only have one active at a time, and they give a single effect when activated and then a buff that lasts until the scene ends or they use a different Kiho. They thus get more versatility than the Togashi monks, who get bonuses to using the Kihos they do know instead. The Kitsune Impersonator are a Courtier/Shugenja school, but are not members of the Fox Clan or Kitsune family necessarily. Indeed, there are no rules for playing as a Fox Clan samurai! This is a school for playing a literal kitsune, a Chikushu-do fox spirit that chooses to live among mortals as one of them, perhaps because they have fallen in love with a human or are descended from such a pairing. In human form, they usually appear as beautiful or handsome and generally youthful. They have strong senses of humor and are usually very inquisitive, even to the point of rudeness and prying. Further, they have a fox’s tail or even multiple tails, depending on their power, and these can reappear even in their human disguise. The eldest and most potent kitsune have nine tails. Kitsune PCs, despite being trickster spirits, follow the same Honor rules as normal samurai; they must adopt the Code of Bushido in order to maintain their human disguises, even if they don’t agree with the code entirely. They have to forfeit 1 Honor when using their powers to appear as samurai of higher Status than themselves, on top of any normal Honor lost for lying or other actions they perform in that guise – more on that in their technique. Kitsune have a good mix of social and combat skills, plus access to Invocations, Rituals and Shuji. They focus on Air Invocations and Shuji above all else. They have very low Honor, at 30, and must take the False Identity Disadvantage to represent that, well, they aren’t human. They pick a different school to get the gear from, representing the identity they are embodying as a human, but get none of its techniques, because…kitsune, they get the kitsune techniques. Their basic technique is Fox Spirit. Their true form is either a large fox with up to eight tails, if they are a pureblooded kitsune, or a human with fox traits if they are part human. As a Scheme and Support action, they may transform between human and their true form, or into any silhouette 1-2 natural creature that the GM allows, which is humans and any animal or critter human-sized or smaller, though they can’t become a specific person. Anyone with Vigilance of their (Performance+school rank) or lower cannot spot any flaws in the illusion. However, if they become Compromised, the disguise slips, revealing their true tails, ears, feet or shadow. Their capstone is Nine Tail Ascension. Their true form now has nine tails, and while in it, they increase their Resistance to both physical and supernatural damage by 2. When in their true form and making any skill check, they may swap any one die containing a Success result to one containing a Great Success result. Further, while in their true form, they can spend two Opportunities when taking any Attack action; if they do, and the action resolves with their target becoming Unconscious or Incapacitated, they may choose to either devour or banish the target’s body or soul, instantly killing them. Because you’re a loving kitsune, and in your natural form you can just eat people. Last, we have the Kolat Saboteur, a Shinobi school. The Kolat are, we recall, a criminal conspiracy in the empire made from an affiliation of various subversive sects dedicated to ending the Celestial Order and placing humanity in charge, with all divine spirits slain or taken to heel. The Saboteurs serve as assassins for hire most of the time, but when the Kolat calls, they serve as its hands. The Kolat makes most of its money from crime, and the Saboteurs pursue many ends for the various sects that make up the conspiracy, which may come into conflict with each other. Overall, though, the shared mission is to end the age of gods, and the Saboteurs’ purpose is to perform the missions assigned them by their Kolat handler. The identity of the handler may or may not be known to the PC, as many members of the Kolat use cover identities. Including all Saboteurs, who like the Kitsune Impersonator must take the False Identity disadvantage to represent their double life. They have excellent combat and sneaky skills, and have the lowest Honor of any starting school – 20. They can learn Kata and Shuji…and not Rituals, which is odd, since basically everyone can learn Rituals. That seems like a typo to me. They also get access to Ninjutsu via their curriculum. Their basic technique is Professional Saboteur. Once per session, at the start of a scene, they can reveal that an NPC in that scene is the target of their current assignment. The GM will then tell them what the assignment is – sabotaging their work, framing them, murdering them, making sure they survive, whatever. Until the end of the scene, they can reroll up to their school rank in dice on any skill check targeting that NPC. Their capstone is Usher In the New Age. During downtime, they may automatically overcome or bypass any NPC guards or security measures to get access to an NPC, then make a Skulduggery check based on the NPC’s stats. If they succeed and the NPC is a minion or adversary that the GM decides is not essential to the campaign’s plot, they automatically succeed at whatever they wanted to do – murder, delivering a threat, whatever. If the NPC is a plot-essential adversary, they instead get to confront the NPC, alone, in a solo conflict scene. They can spend Opportunities on the Skulduggery check to ensure no one notices anything they do but their target, or to make sure that if the target dies, it appears to be an accident or natural causes. Basically, being a Kolat Saboteur lets you tap the GM on the shoulder and go ‘I want the spotlight now.’ Which…is fine, as long as the GM can handle juggling it for the other PCs. In all cases, the Kolat Saboteur and Kitsune Impersonator are noted to need collaboration of everyone involved to ensure they are appropriate to the campaign. It’s not rare for L5R characters to keep secrets from each other in character, so that should ideally not be an issue. However, out of character, everyone should be on board for the fact that, well, narratively both schools represent a sort of outsider to regular Rokugani society, one that is fundamentally different from normal samurai. We get some new example Advantages and Disadvantages, but because these are so freeform, I don’t think they’re really useful to have unless you’re not good at making up your own based on the examples that already were in the core. False Identity is noted to have optional rules to say that once you hit rank 2 in the school you actually are, you can spend 2 XP to learn the basic technique of the school you are pretending to belong to. However, you can only use it once per session, you always use it as if you were Rank 1, and can never get more than one “false” school technique this way. We get a pair of new Shuji designed for the Kolat and Imperials – Spin the Web, which lets a Kolat member recruit NPCs as assets for aid in later scenes, and Awe of Heaven, which lets Imperial characters apply Silenced (+3 difficulty to Intrigue actions and checks to use Invocations, Maho or Shuji) to people based on a Command roll once per scene. We also get Titles. A lot of them. Titles were in the core – basically, they’re kind of a secondary School you can pick up, which gives you access to a curriculum of techniques you might not normally have access to, a boost to your Status and, once you complete the curriculum, a new ability based on the title’s job. So here we get stuff like Advisor, which gives access to a bunch of Shuji and lets you, once completed, give extra bonus dice to anyone you assist on a Scholar skill check. The titles are: Advisor, Clan Magistrate, Daimyo, Gunso (‘military commander’), Monastic Acolyte, Priest, Spy and Yojimbo. Each lists what kind of character can assign them, and this matters because while NPCs can hand out an unlimited number of titles, PCs are limited. A PC daimyo can hand out Advisor or Gunso titles to other PCs as appropriate, for example, but PCs are limited by their Status on how many titles they can hand out total to other PCs. The End! For my next thing I’ve decided I’m gonna take a step away from trying to sell settings and instead look at one of the funniest things I can think of for nWoD: the Bloodlines books, which are just giant collections of Vampire bloodlines, many of which are not well-written and have extremely silly or broken powers. Do you want to see: Bloodlines: The Chosen (Bloodlines selected as winners from a fan submission contest, including the Emotionless Vampires and the Sound Vampires) Bloodlines: The Legendary (Bloodlines surrounded by rumor and legend, including the Clown Vampires and the Sparkly Vampires) Ancient Bloodlines/Ancient Mysteries (A pair of books built around providing historical settings and weird stories for Vampire, and the Bloodlines that went with them, including the Sun-Worshipping Vampires and the Actually For Real Christian Vampires; not nearly as insane and silly as the other books) Bloodlines: The Hidden (Bloodlines that try to remain secret and unknown, including the Drugs Vampires and Dream Vampires)
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Mar 14, 2019 18:58
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I am glad that Seppun Astrologer is still good and fun; it was one of my favorite 4e things. I also appreciate playable kitsune because I'm a loving weeb. The explanation for why they have to bushido is neat, too. e: and wrt AdEva, I knew a guy who I think worked on the dev team? If not, he was pretty close to them. Either way, this dude would randomly show up on irc with screeds about how darkness and hopelessness in storylines was good, actually, and games where people were having fun instead of suffering until they e: actually finished a sentence Leraika fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 19:13
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