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AmiYumi posted:Second one has the Priestess/Lieutenant dynamic going, which is very GM-only backstory-ish, but at least gives you some more to do with the encounter than just “horde of identical sharkmen”; an identifiable leader lets you and the players both play with strategy at the most basic level. Agreed. And if you do want to make Fish people a thing, two conflicting factions just adds to the potential entertainment.
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Oct 29, 2017 17:38
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Dallbun posted:Not necessarily. This is the one that I owned and used as a kid, after all. Also, I'm a few hundred cards in to these reviews, and my will to live is waning. Maybe, but my record on these things isn't very good.
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Oct 29, 2017 17:38
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MadDogMike posted:Honestly I'd probably merge both sahaugin cards into one encounter; they're attacking because of the priestess disagreement, but the location/scenario is the inn for ease of setup. You could actually make the motivation a factor by having the priestess join the fight against the other sahaugin; she may want to kill everybody in the inn too but by DAGON she's gonna smash these punks who refuse to obey her first! Bonus points if she switches to trying to kill the innfolk off after a certain point herself because the "time became right" (or the sahaugin competitors who wouldn't obey her got killed off in the fighting). I think if it was just a matter of hours before the time became right there wouldn't be a schism (although that would be a comedy option). But yeah, merging the two encounters seems to be the best thing to do.
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Oct 29, 2017 17:44
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I've decided that I will try to do the Desk of Encounters, Set Two, but do people want to wait until deck one is done or do they mind a double dip? Pondering the gimmick of making a party and running them through the cards that are keepers. Having just had a look a a couple, the danger levels are odd - a beggar woman gets the same danger level as three manticores, I'm guessing more due to the XP reward for her encounter and the potential consequences of messing it up rather than the immediate danger.
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Nov 1, 2017 08:07
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Before we can traverse the Deck of Encounters, Set two, we need to make some characters. Suggestions taken, here are their stat lines, and which special classes they qualify for. 1. 7, 14, 12, 8, 14, 10 2. 13, 17, 8, 10, 12, 10 - Bard, Druid, Illusionist, Paladin, Speciality Wizard 3. 10, 14, 10, 14, 14, 15 - Ranger, Druid, Bard, Speciality Wizard 4. 7, 14, 12, 8, 10, 12 5. 14, 11, 12, 17, 14, 13 - Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Illusionist, Bard, Speciality Wizard One of the two boring lines will probably be used to make a multiclass demihuman character. Will be using Weapon Specialisation and Secondary Skills. PHB only for now.
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Nov 2, 2017 08:31
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DalaranJ posted:Ugh, I’m so over talking frogs now. Nah. Spelljammer specifically says you can have whatever cosmology you like going on inside the spheres.
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Nov 3, 2017 15:55
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Barudak posted:Conversely, since the damage of the weapon is irrelevant, you could take it [a motorcycle] out by throwing a handful of small rocks at it.
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Nov 5, 2017 10:20
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Nessus posted:I think one of the factors that balances out Sonic the Elfhog here is that this combo stacker can only be done on a single person - by necessity! So I'm not sure it would be quite as necessary to nerf it, although you might could owl it down a notch or two by saying this particular elf was a trained long distance runner or a mutant or part-wind sylph or something. Maybe the speed of sound is slower in D&D land.
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Nov 5, 2017 23:42
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Mors Rattus posted:So, uh, how did Poor Hungry Mom manage to get herself a bag of holding? Those things ain't cheap. Left behind by deadbeat adventuring father to those kids? She can't sell it because no-one in town could buy it, or the people who could are going to rip her off?
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Nov 6, 2017 15:49
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As we get about halfway through the Deck of Encounters, Set one, a valiant party meets in a tavern and sets out through... The Fighter, Beavis skullshirt The Paladin , Bhead the Blue The Conjurer, Magonna Silverkin The half-elve Fighter/Cleric, Quota Greensleeves and finally, Druid, Janie Greensleeves I only bothered to buy weapons, armor, and war dogs. Other equipment will be assumed, as long as it seems reasonable. HP were rolled by taking the best of two rolls. quote:Name: Beavis Skullshirt quote:Name: Sir Bhead the Blue quote:Name: Magonna Silverkin quote:Name: Quota Greensleeves quote:Name: Janie Greensleeves Their up to date character sheets and other notes can be found here: https://goo.gl/sjERV7 My cards are not in numerical order, because I couldn't see a number on them and I've split them by danger level. Without further ado, it's time for our party of idiots to travel onwards. Splitting hairs Low danger, 630xp (I guess for defeating the gnolls and finding the treasure) The party hear the sounds of a battle ahead, and if they investigate, they discover a large group of gnolls (30 or so) intent on tearing each other to bits. There are two factions of the gnolls, and this fight is the escalation of an argument; if any of the characters understand Gnoll, they can tell that each side is accussign the other of having stolen, hoarding or having or lost some great treasure. If the characters wade in immediately, all 30 turn on them. If they wait for the gnolls to stop, only 2d6 are left alive. The treasure is a Broach of Shielding, an item that absorbs magic missiles (101 points of damage). It is somewhere amongst the bodies. Keep, though how the characters deal with it will depend a lot on their view of gnolls and whether they can understand them. We're going to check if any of our guys can speak Gnollish, and it turns out that Magonna does. There's enough people in the party with half a brain, so they wait until the gnolls are done fighting, meaning they only have to deal with 9 of them. Magonna has both Sleep and Grease memorised, and Quota or Janie can cast Bless. They also have a total of 5 war dogs. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Nov 7, 2017 |
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Nov 7, 2017 08:02
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MightyMatilda posted:@Angrymog: The sheets don't mention the ACs for the Wizard or the Druid. I assume they're quite high, though I don't know too much about 2nd edition. They're in the stored one. Wizard is AC 10 (or 6 with Armour cast, which since it lasts until it takes too much damage she'll be starting with it) and Druid is 7
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Nov 7, 2017 19:54
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theironjef posted:Just make every encounter a gnome, see if it fixes it. Should be a litmus test.
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Nov 8, 2017 20:38
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Our happy party of adventurers are beginning their trip through Splitting Hairs Recap: The party have encountered a group of gnolls fighting with each other. As Magonna understands them, she passes on the information that they're accussing each other of having lost a bit of treasure. If the party wade right in, all the gnolls (30) turn on them. If they wait, there's only 2d6. Downsides of this is that there' no reason for the PCs to assume that the gnolls have just dropped the treasure there (they have). Still, I'm deciding to Keep it as it's simple, but allows some PC decision making. The party acts posted:Quota casts Bless, granting everyone +1 to their attack for 6 rounds Moving on, it's time for a land dispute in The rights of miners This encounter takes place in hills, and starts with a group of miners asking the PCs for help to defend their claim from a goblin tribe. They're offering gold equivalent of 20% of a day's production if the PCs will help them. The card lists 500gp, but isn't clear if that's the PC's take, which means that the mine is producing 2500gp of copper ore a day, or if that's a day's output, in which case the PCs get 100gp. Nor does it say if they're offered that per day, or for the entire job. Also that means these miners in the middle of loving nowhere have at least 100gp on them, and as much as 1000. This is D&D, the wilderness is inherently dangerous, why didn't they spend some of that money hiring guards? As the card plays out, the PCs spend two days with nothing happening, then on day 3, 18 goblins attack for a couple of rounds before running. After that they attack once a day at a random time for a week. If the miners fall below two-thirds of their original number they pack up and go home. I'm tempted to pass on this one because you need to flesh out a few NPCs - the foreman at the least, and may even need to come up with a goblin lair if the characters decide to be proactive and go hunting. Also escort quests are a bit poo poo. On the other hand, you could make it more complicated - perhaps the goblins aren't miners, and have a really good reason for wanting the humans to stop digging. The miners could pay the PCs with a credit note redeemable at the offices of the organisation that's bankrolling the dig, which makes more sense than them having loadsa gold with them. You could have the PCs come back a few months later and see the beginning of a small gold rush town that sprung up when they struck gold. Jury? Moving on, the party are getting tired, so it's time to Sleep Tight The PCs come across a dilapidated roadside inn, however the innkeeper and his family (wife, two kids, grandma) are friendly, and the food is quite good. A couple of other guests wander in and are happy enough to swop stories. If they spend the night, the PCs get bugs, which are really irritating for about a week, but don't have any mechanical effect. Stats for the innkeeper and his wife are provided (they're normal humans), I guess in case the party decide they're disguised demons or something and decide to kill them. Pass - lovely but friendly inn isn't really an encounter that warrants a card, is it? I suppose you could use the innkeepers or other guests to drop some rumours, or have the PCs find the place in the aftermath of another adventuring party passing through, jumping to conclusions, and murdering the owners, but that's pretty dark. Of course, the PCs may want to avoid civillisation as a whole, as the next small town they come to sees them picked out as marks for The Small Con - they are approached by a small, distressed, boy who explains that his parents have lost him (the story makes it clear that he wandered off), and could the nice heroes please help him find them? Also, he's very hungry. The child is actually an un-named adult halfling, who's planning to rob the PCs blind in the night or as the oppurtunity presents itself. If they don't have anything easily stealable, he's just going to mooch off them for the rest of the day before wandering off. There's no Alignment listed, so whether he'll ping on Paladin radar is up to you (assuming the paladin even thinks to trigger the ability) Keep It gives them some RP oppurtunities, and if he gets away with it, they might spot him the next day (or the next town over) and have the oppurtunity for revenge. It could also derail a session or two. How do our party deal with it? posted:Moganna, Janie, and Beavis all succeed on a Wisdom roll and notice that the child is actually an adult halfing. Beavis goes aggro, at which point the 'child' bursts into tears and starts causing a scene. A member of the public takes the child under her wing; the party try to warn her, but the reaction roll goes poorly and the rest of the crowd grumbles about the PC's boorish behavior. We'll give the party their 25xp (a stunning 5 each) for not having fallen for the con and trying to stop someone else being taken advantage of. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Nov 10, 2017 |
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Nov 10, 2017 08:59
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For some reason, Beavis and Friends haven't been put off towns with their last dip into the Let's see how things go this time... A potential double bill of events for the party to deal with; In a small village, our valiant band faces their (well, someone's) mortality in The Sight of Death! When travelling through a small village, the party witness a shopkeeper being suddenly and brutally murdered by a dark-cloaked figure. The killer is apprehended in a cutscene (found hiding in stables a few hours later - why not steal a loving horse then?) and arrested. The town constable rounds up the party members as witnesses, but lets them know that the Justice, a Paladin, will be out of town for a couple of weeks, and as the murderer has now been identified as part of a rather cutthroat thieves guild, would the party mind going into protective custody? Many problems here - stats are provided for the murdered, so theoretically the party could try and stop him before he cowers in the stables, but why doesn't he ride away? It's not as if being a horse thief is going to result in harsher punishment than being a murderer. No guidance for what the constable does if the party don't want to be stuck in a cellar for two weeks. The time involved also derails whatever else you might have had going on. Pass as a random encounter, could be used as a springboard for a proper adventure if you have pre-exisiting NPCs or Organisations to plug in that the PCs might care about. Also, ditch the hiding in the cellar, or make that a trap for the characters. 100xp for I guess going along with the railroad. Assuming that the PCs agree to go into the cellar, they find another witness already in residence - an old lady called Kalenya. Who won't shut up about how awful everything is, and how everyone is doomed. It won't take more than an hour or so of listening to her going on to make the characters Cry for Silence After five nights of boring misery in their cellar, the thieves (including the accused) sneak in and try to murder the characters. The guards, the Constable, and his assisstant are quite dead. The Paladin may try to link the characters to the thieves (assuming the party are still there when he gets back) 100xp. The End. Pass because this really didn't deserve a second card, nevermind the first. Somehow the party is still not sick of towns, and on their next attempt to visit civillisation have a run in with The Enforcers. Six half-orcs block the party from entering the town, whilst the leader tells them that the place is under the protection of Black Karvin, and he breaks those that break his law. They then let the PCs in. Karvin's law amounts to 'What Karvin wants, Karvin gets'. The PCs are watched whilst they're in town, and the thugs will show them that they mean business if they step out of line. If the PCs deal with the thugs (either at the gate, or incidentally whilst in town), Karvin flees and the townspeople are grateful. If the PCs come back to town they'll discover that so has Karvin, with better thugs, 90 XP for dealing with the thugs. Keep as long as you didn't have other plans for that town. Lets say we don't and see how the PCs do. The Enforcers posted:They don't kick up a fuss at the gates and are allowed into the town, deciding that they're just going to spend the night and don't really care about some local crime lord. It's not long before the half-orcs realise that they forgot to get an 'entry fee' from our party, and that adventuring sorts are known to have a lot of money (forgetting how they tend to get that money). They leave the gate and tail the party, picking a suitably narrow street to ambush them in, three to the front, three to the back.
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Nov 15, 2017 09:33
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wdarkk posted:I feel like it'd be way easier to bring the pegasus to the gargoyle, since they can fly and all. I was thinking that too.
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Nov 15, 2017 18:13
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Years ago, playing Vampire, the party had a sudden burst of brilliance and managed to figure out the plot before finding all the clues. Cue the GM going, "You weren't supposed to go to the club until Thursday!"
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Nov 17, 2017 22:13
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Some dolphins huff blowfish to get high off their toxins.
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Nov 21, 2017 13:59
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Cherryh is very good at making aliens (or other nonhumans) that are actually alien, without being incomprehensible. Vernor Vinge has good aliens too in both A Deepness in the Sky (spider folk), and a Fire Upon the Deep (pack hive-minds).
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Nov 21, 2017 21:08
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LongDarkNight posted:The skrode-riders too. They don't get a lot of direct screen time, but there's also the murder butterflies, and that poor whatever that's catching up on events via the equivalent of a very delayed usenet relay.
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Nov 22, 2017 02:54
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Bieeardo posted:Oh, yes, like one of those MMO players who decks their characters out in vantablack dyes, rare and gaudy particle effects, and some highly unlikely-looking staff. In Ultima Online they'd be doing this and sitting on the roof of West Brit Bank on their nightmares. And yes, there were several different skins of Nightmare, some of which didn't spawn any longer (the shaggier one iirc)
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Nov 26, 2017 20:04
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I don't think they swim, just crawl. Like snails.
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Nov 28, 2017 16:15
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Robindaybird posted:Nunchucks (or a three-section staff if you watched the European edit of the first cartoon series due to their weird laws about depicting ninjas at the time) are deadly in the right hands, but as every other marital art film in the 90s showed - it's extremely easy to slap yourself silly using it if you're not skilled. That was specifically in the UK, and they just cut Michaelangelo's combat bits in the cartoon rather than redraw things. Also it was renamed Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. France at least was quite happy with 'Tortues Ninja'. But France also showed a lot of the shonen shows like Saint Seiya, Dragonball Z, and Fist of the Northstar, with very few cuts, so a bit of sanitised US cartoon violence wasn't going to phase them.
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Dec 12, 2017 08:14
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Re: Anthropomorphic animals in space, what about Justifiers?
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Jan 1, 2018 02:32
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There's a fatal and friends discord?
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Jan 10, 2018 08:43
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PurpleXVI posted:Please tell me I'm not the only one who keeps seeing this thing with a spiky green penis. Now you've mentioned it. .. If there isn't a F&F discord I'll make one
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Jan 10, 2018 11:42
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Hipster Occultist posted:If you wanted to keep things a bit more grounded, any sort of artillery piece pulled by a couple mules would likely do the trick. Can animals go insane?
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Jan 10, 2018 12:26
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Mods made a F&F channel on the discord linked above.
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Jan 10, 2018 20:23
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DicktheCat posted:Goddammit. It happened again. Motherfucker. Well, when generating an invite, it is possibly to make them last forever.
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Jan 12, 2018 01:33
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SirPhoebos posted:I just read up on SLA: The Truth. I never thought I'd see the Hot Topic version of the Snowglobe Kid from St. Elsewhere would show up in an RPG The Truth is probably the worst thing about the game. I mean, there's loads of really stupid poo poo, but then it all gets handwaved away by The Truth. It's a bit of meta-game nonsense that doesn't matter at all to the characters.
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Jan 13, 2018 18:42
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Zereth posted:Unless the fact that it's a dream is up-front, and relevant to the players mechanically. This is true. But the SLA Truth-Dream is just stupid and irrelevant to the characters.
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Jan 14, 2018 11:56
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Foglet posted:Isn't there a Deck of Encounters: Set Two, though? There is. I've started it and I mean to finish.
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Jan 15, 2018 13:35
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Since our last postBeavis and Friends return to the safety of the wilderness and continue their journey through Deck of Encounters, Set two Ambush in the marsh The party are ambushed by lizard men in a tropical marsh. 12 attack at first, and another 12 arrive in 2-4 rounds. They're a hunting party so have no treasure on them, but if all of them are killed, their tracks can be followed to their lair where there's some money and a potion of Dwarf control. The card doesn't specify that they fight to the death, so they could flee depending on Morale checks. The lizardmen are skinnable and their hides can be cured and used to make scale armor. Are all lizardmen skinnable, or just these guys? 1550 xp, however, we're going to Pass - it's just a monster attacks card, the treasure if boring, and there's no other hooks. Who's working on the Chain Gang? Probably not these Ogres. In some temperate hills the party encounters a bickering group of Ogres chained to each other by their arms. The Ogres beg the party to release them. If the party do so, the Ogres attack to take revenge on demi-humankind for their enslavement. If the party don't free them, the Ogres attack anyway because they're angry at not being released. The card doesn't note any combat differences between the ogres when chained together and the ogres when freed. 1620 XP for defeating the ogres, but let's just not. Pass IMO. There's an unasked question about who's enslaving ogres and if there's anyone trying to find this group, but that's roaming into mini-adventure rather than random encounter territory. Moving on, the party risk Frostbite Travelling through some snowy, sub-artic hills, the party comes across the remains of a battle; the corpses of men and women are scattered around, having clearly killed each other. The women are wearing almost identical clothes; fur-lined, close-fitting jackets and leggings, covered with a bright woolen surcoat. As the PCs are poking around the bodies looking for treasure or any more information about the combatants, one of the women wakes up and, mistaking the PCs for more of her enemies, attacks in a berserk rage. She's a second level cleric with 11 HP, and her normal spells available. For some reason she's described as being dressed in a tattered mockery of the clothes of the other women, which isn't a detail that makes a lot of sense given the rest of the details. 90xp if the party fight her, but once more, let's Pass. Again there's potential to use the card as a jumping off point for more of an adventure, but as a random encounter it's somewhat meh. Also my players would try and bring her down alive, which would lead to a massive derail for the rest of the session as they turn it into an adlibbed adventure. The hills warm up, and the party makes camp for the night, but oh noes! They're about to become the victim of a Practical Joke The first person on watch is confronted by the sight of a beautiful or handsome ghost who does the whole "Follow me..." pantomine. If the character (or party) follow, they get led into a bunch of mud or a pile of poo poo (what sort? Doesn't say. Let's go with owlbears). Ghost laughs silently, then vanishes. Next watch is interrupted by a vision of an army of elephant-riding Ogres, which vanishes when it reaches the camp. The last, by a hill giant which storms into the camp and vanishes before it attacks the party. The sound of faint giggling can be heard in the distance. In the morning, a group of Gnomes troops through, and their leader makes them apologise. 650xp, I guess for not murdering the gnomes. Thoughts? I'm leaning to a pass, because it's an annoyance encounter - the only use of which would be to stop the party regaining spells, and unless they're on a time limit, they'll just spend another night on the road.
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Jan 18, 2018 08:18
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White Coke posted:After reading the Kayfabe and Powerchords reviews, is there an RPG that treats being a musician like Kayfabe treats being a wrestler? No magic or anything like that, just the players being members of a band trying to climb their way to the top all while dealing with record labels, rival bands, changing musical tastes, and personal problems. Umläut: Game of Metal? http://totl.net/Umlaut/
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Feb 8, 2018 00:52
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I think my old FLGS might have one. I can ask.
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Feb 10, 2018 22:03
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PurpleXVI posted:You know, again, why does this always end up on female NPC's or characters? Why is it practically never a man who vows to take no wives or is cursed never to know love. It always seems to end up on a woman's head as a way to make her stand out. One of the main characters of the Mahabharata, Bishma, takes a vow of celibacy (and renounces his claim to the throne of Hastinapur) to allow his father to marry a new bride, which eventually leads to the birth of the Pandavas and Karuvas.
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Feb 25, 2018 11:20
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Kurieg posted:The storyteller's chapter straight up says that when mankind uplifted dogs they also cured all the physical and genetic diseases that came from the ridiculously shallow gene pools some of these breeds have, because not doing that would have been cruel. The problem with modern pugs and e.g. bulldogs are mechanical. If you cure them, they don't look like pugs anymore. You can't keep the pug look and cure the genetic problems.
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Mar 5, 2018 01:51
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Nessus posted:I don't think this is quite the case because I've seen drawings of pugs and bulldogs from the mid-19th century and they were recognizably the breed while being much less distorted. This is probably easier for bulldog than pug of course. Yeah, I know that the older versions of the breeds were different, hence my use of 'modern' pug. But I suspect most of the 'awww, this little dog that clearly can't breathe properly is sooooo cute' crowd wouldn't consider it as the same beastie. I'm glad that there's people trying to breed dogs and the more extreme cats back to something functional again - e.g. traditional persians rather than flat-faced ones.
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Mar 5, 2018 09:41
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DalaranJ posted:Since earlier iterations of the concept had varying names SenZar is probably the first ever use of the name “Fate Points” for the concept. WHFRP 1st edition had Fate points too.
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Mar 14, 2018 22:01
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theironjef posted:I dunno about the others, I was warned in advance a while ago. Decided to wait to chime in til he was mostly through posting and other people called out the show because we have an April Fool's rep. I wasn't paying that much attention to Eldoru, but I did think your post sounded uncharacteristically full of sour grapes.
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Apr 3, 2018 07:27
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megane posted:Wait so does that mean that in Pathfinder it's completely impossible for a mythical hero to flip over a centipede On the other hand, as they have no legs at all it should be really easy to trip an ooze or slime
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Apr 4, 2018 09:49
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