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Jerik posted:So is there some practical difference between these that isn't reflected in your brief summary, or did they really print essentially the same flaw twice with two different point costs? Bad Liar: You have tremendous trouble lying. The spontaneous excuses that you come up with are usually unbelievably elaborate or easily refuted with the bare modicum of research. When telling a prefabricated lie, you stutter, stammer, blush and generally look guilty. Increase the difficulty of any roll that involves verbal deception by two. Honest to a Fault: You always try to tell the truth, no matter what the situation. You won't stretch it, bend it or manipulate it to take advantage of others, unless human lives are in jeopardy. If you do attempt to lie to someone, the difficulty of any roll involved is increased by two. So... nnnno? I feel like there's no reason at all that this shouldn't be one flaw that says something like Can't Lie: Maybe you're very bad at lying, maybe you thing it's wrong and hate doing it. Either way, increase the difficulty etc. I guess a aggressively literal reading of Honest is that you increase the difficulty of literally any roll in a situation where you're lying whereas Bad Liar is specifically about talking but I don't know if that's a needful level of granularity for this one specific thing. Froghammer posted:Motherfucking wow. Like, I get that half the point of HtR is that Hunters are broken human beings to begin with but uh I was floored when I came across that writing the review up. I'd skimmed the section beforehand but missed it so it was literally as I was typing it all out that I came across it and, just, fuuuuuck. They came up with the Abuse Save. Like, "Oh, it's a new day? I gotta make my Save vs Abuse. Dang, I failed: one bashing for me." Who would ever think that's a good idea. And, I know this is incredibly far from the point, but on top of everything else that's loving horrifying about that Flaw... in a game that constantly reminds you it's about your characters emotions reducing something like that to a single die roll for off-screen events is just... what? Again, that's not what's wrong with this. It's just a little extra element of "why would you ever include this?"
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Apr 11, 2020 01:36
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Aethyron posted:Bad Liar: You have tremendous trouble lying. The spontaneous excuses that you come up with are usually unbelievably elaborate or easily refuted with the bare modicum of research. When telling a prefabricated lie, you stutter, stammer, blush and generally look guilty. Increase the difficulty of any roll that involves verbal deception by two. What were the rules for buying off or changing Flaws? Because honestly, if another character had this Flaw, chances are that after one failed "abuse save" most of the characters I tend to play would take some time off from hunting non-human monsters to go put that abusing oval office in the ground.
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Apr 11, 2020 02:17
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Oberndorf posted:How about for the “Undesirable group” in the flaw? In all seriousness, who else who you sub in for a social group universally felt to be assholes? And if you subbed them in, would you be comfortable with them in the game? Just say something about how a group you're affiliated with has been classified as a gang and go from there.
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Apr 11, 2020 02:21
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Everyone posted:What were the rules for buying off or changing Flaws? Because honestly, if another character had this Flaw, chances are that after one failed "abuse save" most of the characters I tend to play would take some time off from hunting non-human monsters to go put that abusing oval office in the ground. Yeah, you're not alone- uh, off the top of my head I think that when you lose a Flaw you have to just reallocate the points to get a different Flaw but I'm not 100% sure. It actually may not be possible to ever lower the total point value of your Flaws because they're bought with Freebie Points which you can't earn during play and can't be bought with xp which is another reason in a long list of why it is a bad idea to have three different... I don't know what you'd call them, 'advancement currencies'. Nemo2342 posted:Just say something about how a group you're affiliated with has been classified as a gang and go from there. Yeah, really it's just don't mention specific organisations I'd say? If one wanted to play a character who has ties to really bad people that's between them and their gaming group. What I'm very much against is it being endorsed by the authorial voice of a professionally published RPG product (from one of the bigger companies in the industry at the time) because do you want to be in the situation where you show up to game and there's a guy saying you have to allow him to play his KKK member character because it's in the book? I mean there are a lot of issues with printing that but that's one that can specifically absolutely ruin someones day up to making them feel psychologically and physically unsafe.
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Apr 11, 2020 02:48
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Nemo2342 posted:Just say something about how a group you're affiliated with has been classified as a gang and go from there.  are... are Juggalos Hunters?
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Apr 11, 2020 03:14
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Nessus posted:
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Apr 11, 2020 03:28
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Tibalt posted:Juggalos hunt mages, furries hunt werewolves, LaRouchites hunt vampires... Jesus, I ain't seen a LaRouchite since college.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:30
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Unless the Union specifically and violently excludes them there is no way there aren't Juggalo hunters.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:41
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Aethyron posted:Yeah, you're not alone- uh, off the top of my head I think that when you lose a Flaw you have to just reallocate the points to get a different Flaw but I'm not 100% sure. It actually may not be possible to ever lower the total point value of your Flaws because they're bought with Freebie Points which you can't earn during play and can't be bought with xp which is another reason in a long list of why it is a bad idea to have three different... I don't know what you'd call them, 'advancement currencies'. I was curious as to whether they'd bothered to include anything specific and apparently not. The Player's Guides were a thing that ran through most old White Wolf stuff up to and including Aeon Trinity and Aberrant (it most likely would have occurred in Adventure! as well had that game produce more than a single book. My own fix was either pick another Flaw of equal or greater value or, if you really want to remove it, pay out 10 XP per "level" of the Flaw. Decided you really don't want your character to suffer his -5 Dark Fate? Fine. Gimme 50 XP, beeyotch.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:47
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Terrible Opinions posted:Unless the Union specifically and violently excludes them there is no way there aren't Juggalo hunters.
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Apr 11, 2020 04:57
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I find it highly amusing that as a color-blind smoker with a limp, I'm already min-maxing my "flaws" in real life, just on a quick skim of the physical flaws. Good design, guys. Me as just some rando who totally interacts in society fine has more negatives than an active Klan member. Real cool there.
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Apr 11, 2020 05:49
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What's with all the 'good taste' or 'snob' themed merits and flaws? It seems like they're expecting PCs to either be neo-Nazis or Frasier Crane.
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Apr 11, 2020 06:09
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  Starting at Higher Level: For those pointing out the incongruity of 1st-level PCs being underpowered for the legends they’re famed for, the book suggests that gaming groups unsatisfied with their “famous heroes” starting out at 1st level can begin at 5th. In this case the DM should skip two of the three Great Labors, with the relevant deeds/treasures/etc already performed and retrieved. The Great Labors are all in different locations, but conveniently the city of Estoria is within reasonable traveling distance of all three. Chances are the PCs may be headed there to speak with the god Pythor for their Epic Paths anyway. Estoria is not in a good location by the time the PCs arrive. Sydon is extorting farmers to make daily sacrifices of one cow a day, keeping all of it for himself and not doing the “burn the best parts and let the mortals eat the rest” that is typical for more reasonable gods. Even worse, centaur, gygan, and cyclops forces loyal to him are gathering in large war parties across the river. Sydon promised to pull them away from Estoria should Pythor offer his daughter Anora as a sacrifice on the next night of the full moon, else the assembled armies shall invade. A sacrifice her father is unwilling to make.  Estoria is a fair-sized city with 14 major sites to explore and 10 potential random encounters: most of the encounters are just set dressing, but a few involve fights or danger such as a bunch of barrels breaking off a cart and heading in the party’s direction.  Trope Alert: Side Quests: One of Odyssey’s strong points is that while it has a main plot, a lot of encounters and locations are optional or can be found off the beaten path should the PCs go out of their way to explore the cities and islands of the adventure path. As completing said side quests usually nets the party more Experience and material rewards than if they bypassed them, gaming groups of a more completionist mindset will have an advantage in future encounters due to being more powerful.So what sidequests do we have in Estoria? Well there’s… ...a Wine Festival where the party can watch mythological and historical plays expanding on Thylea’s world-building. One of the actress is a disguised green hag who will try to seduce a PC to meet her alone so she can eat their heart. ...a grave robber who stole a Necklace of Fireballs from the Necropolis and is starving to death due to the curse for his sin. The only way for him to end the curse is to sell the necklace to someone who knows that he stole it from a grave. It will teleport back into his possession otherwise. ...meet some dwarves in the Dragon’s Tooth, a local tavern. They will pay the PCs 10 gp for each dwarven skull retrieved from the Mithral Mines. The skulls are needed to bury their kin, and their race once operated the Mithral Forge. This one’s a subtrope all its own! ...meet a man and his husband in the local vineyards, whose daughter Corinna went missing. She is encountered at the Mossy Temple, one of the many teenagers who joined Demetria’s cult of Lutheria. Returning her safely home nets the PCs a Javelin of Lightning from the grateful fathers. ...convince a simple-minded yet good-intentioned cyclops that a group of poachers he’s running with are bad news, as they’re only his ‘friends’ due to the muscle he provides and nothing else. The PCs can also visit the local tavern where they can roll on a d8 table to learn of plot-relevant rumors, several of which hint at future chapters or interesting locations in town: the local dwarf artisan Volkan claims to be the God of the Forge, a massive hurricane is approaching Mytros’ coast, etc. PCs who visit the Dragon Shrine to drink from the Horn of Balmytria will learn that some thieves broke in and stole it. Following the trail whether by Survival or Detect Magic (cuz powerful artifact) leads the PCs to the Mossy Temple deep in the Oldwoods. Finally, Volkan’s Hall is home to the God of the Forge, but most of the locals think him to be merely an eccentric dwarf. He’ll give the PCs a magic item if they sacrificed the boar to him, and even if they did not he promises to help them craft magic items if they get the Mithral Forge working again. The King’s Daughter  But before the PCs can go gallivanting around town, the city guards at the gates will mention that King Pythor is aware of their presence and issued a summons for them. They won’t force them there, but will encourage the party to make haste given that their ruler would not issue this order on a whim. Pythor’s an alcoholic even on his better days, but given the recent troubles his worse side is out as he’s found smashing statues in the main hall. He’ll gain enough lucidity once Kyrah talks some sense into him, and he explains the above troubles regarding Sydon. Although Pythor has dozens (if not hundreds) of children, Princess Anora is very dear to him. The sacrifice in question demanded by Sydon involves tying the captive to the aptly-named Rock of Sacrifice on the river where they must remain until sunrise. It is known that a pair of basilisks will petrify and consume any offerings left there, so even though the wording does not demand death it will be almost certain. Caught between sacrificing one of his own vs the people of the city, he cannot directly fight Sydon’s forces without violating the Oath of Peace, so he begs the PCs to find a solution. The next full moon is a few weeks away, so the PCs have a generous window open to act and also do any Great Labors and various sidequests to Git Gud to fight the basilisks/centaur chieftain/etc. How does Anora feel about this? She’s willing to sacrifice herself, but Pythor will not allow it and locked her away in the palace dungeons to prevent her from sneaking out. One might be asking how Sydon’s forces can raze a city without breaking the Oath of Peace. Well, that’s a good question. In fact, any in-game text of the Oath proper is never revealed, although it’s heavily implied that not attacking Thylea’s major population centers is one of the terms with which the Titans must abide based on later events in the book. Which makes one ask why Estoria’s the exception. While we know that the gods’ devotees can fight each other without breaking the Oath (otherwise this AP would be impossible), the vagueness of the Oath is something the PCs will be asking about in times like this. The PCs could challenge the centaur chieftain in ritual combat, where he and a number of his best soldiers will face the PCs in equal numbers plus one cyclops. This will be a very difficult battle given these are Centaur Heroes with better stats than the base Monster Manual kind, and Kyrah will advise against this. She will resurrect the PCs in one week’s time at Pythor’s palace rather than wasting their Divine Boons should they lose. The other option is to approach the representatives of the Order of Sydon, led by Commander Gaius who is a bit of a recurring villain in this campaign. Pythor’s offer of fifty oxen to replace Anora will be turned down, for Gaius is a Lawful Evil jerk who wants the Five Gods to suffer. He’ll only accept the PCs as an entire party as a worthy sacrificial substitute. The PCs can look for the basilisk’s lair and kill them ahead of time, although this will result in an unforeseen yet still manageable complication. Sacrifices, be they the PCs or Anora, will be led to the Rock of Sacrifice and chained by their feet (but still retain their equipment). A dozen centaur will watch the proceedings, as well as three harpies who will use their songs to lure any escapees back to the rock. The chains limit their movement, and the basilisks will attack after twenty minutes...but if the basilisks are dead, then hours will pass and Sydon’s followers will grow increasingly worried and impatient. The harpies will be the first to break down, where they will attack the sacrifice(s) but will not be joined by their landbound comrades should the PCs retaliate. As the terms of the sacrifice do not mandate death (only a certain time limit), the centaur chieftain will grudgingly disband his army should it go awry. Completing the quest where Anora survives will make Pythor very happy. He will give one of the PCs (ideally the Demi-God) his famous hammer, which in addition to being a great weapon can be used to craft special kinds of weapons at the Mithral Forge. If Anora dies, Pythor will drink himself into unconsciousness and be invalid for a week. Epic Paths: Pythor has relevant information regarding the destinies of the Demi-God and Lost One, but won’t aid them until they resolve the sacrifice quest. He’ll tell the Demi-God that their mother was kidnapped by the dragon Hexia who is believed to lair in the Forgotten Sea. Volkan will give said PC the blueprints for one of Pythor’s unfinished weapons, which is one of the magic weapons for this Path and must be crafted with his hammer at the Mithral Forge. For the Lost One, he’ll mention that Estor Arkelander, one of the Dragonlords, knows where the lost treasure of the order is, but he is now an undead captain of a ghost ship which hasn’t been seen in generations. The Mithral Mines  The Mithral Forge is interesting in that it’s one of the few aspects of Thylea which directly ties the PHB races to the world’s history. The dwarven settlers found a rich mithral vein with some adamantine extending for miles beneath the mountains; the largest in the world in fact. Most of Thylea’s greatest arms and armor were crafted here, and it was this vaunted fame that made Lutheria unleash a Cerberus hound in the mines to slaughter the dwarves. The infernal beast gave birth to many children known as death dogs, meaning that nobody has yet returned it to operating order. As can be expected, the Mithral Mines are a classic subterranean dungeon crawl. The PCs can see four massive statues in the shape of hands which are actually one of Kentimane’s many limbs, a bit of foreshadowing to the Titan’s omnipresent nature across Thylea. They can also come upon some wary centaurs who if not attacked will warn the party of a troglodyte band in the mines who kidnapped their companions. Said companions are a Side Quest where the tribe will award the PCs 3 potions of heroism for rescuing them. The Mithral Mines are a 2-level, 22-room dungeon. Troglodytes from the Underdark sought the mines’ upper reaches as a safe haven from an undefined threat further below the world’s reaches, but ended up involved in a devastating war with the Cerberus’ death dog children. A battle which the troglodytes gained the upper hand in once they bred some cockatrices to petrify the hounds...and in turn the cockatrices started attacking their caretakers, and are thus a third pseudo-faction in the dungeon. The mines have some creepy ambience of multi-headed doglike statues, a few of which come to life shortly after the PCs enter or go on to the next room. PCs who fall in battle against the troglodytes will not be killed, but imprisoned (granting them a Short Rest) and brought to their king. Said king wears a Headband of Intellect which has made him rather miserable upon realization that he lives among idiots. He will be initially nonviolent to the PCs and offer a game of riddles, and should they win or prove otherwise useful to him he’ll tell them the password to bypass the elevator trap leading to the lower levels. The way to the second level is an intricate dwarven elevator with a trap. Unless the right password is uttered, dragonhead spouts will pour oil into the elevator while flaming jetstreams farther below come to life. The PCs have 3 rounds to somehow prepare or avoid this before the entire elevator is lit on fire. The damage alone from this trap can result in a TPK. The second level itself is hotter, home to a Salamander kept imprisoned by a cold-generating bronze sphere that douses her with freezing ice should she go a certain distance away from the room’s center. She was a metalsmith who helped maintain the Forge, but can tell the PCs how to restart and upkeep it should they find and give her the contract binding her (also in the dungeon). She will stay in the Forge for one year voluntarily, helping craft items. But nothing in life is so straightforward. If the trogloydyte king is still alive, he’ll hear the loud sounds of the forge coming to life and lead a war party of 16 of his subjects down the elevator to kill the PCs, the salamander, and any surviving death dogs in order to claim the Forge for himself. The PCs have several rounds to prepare, and can also set up 4 traps in squares of their choice in the forge room to activate when someone enters. Said traps are overhanging cauldrons spilling molten metal, blast vents that shoot out boiling steam, etc. Although the PCs have traps and a fiery monster to aid them, the potential 17-monster combat is highly lethal to PCs who are likely 2nd to 4th level. But I do like how it’s suitably climactic for the end of a dungeon, and cutting back the troglodyte numbers may be best. Epic Paths: The Forgekeeper will give the Dragonslayer one of their wish list magic items, and explain that the gygans of Yonder Island once knew the secrets to building an even greater weapon suitable for fighting dragons. The Mossy Temple  This one’s another dungeon crawl, this time of the decaying vine-covered ruins kind. A group of goatlings stole the Horn of Balmytria so as to prevent the PCs from opposing the Titans’ plans, although they did not do a good job in covering their tracks. Said goatlings are part of a cult of Lutheria, led by the evil dryad Demetria. The cult has been tricking teenagers into thinking they’re joining a cool secret society but in actuality will become either maenads (for the women) or sacrifices (for the men). Goatlings and Maenads: With the absence of orcs, goblins, and kobolds, other monsters serve similar thematic roles in Odyssey of the Dragonlords. Centaur and Gygans more or less replace orcs and ogres as the “strong warrior race of raiders” trope. Maenads and goatlings are two new monsters in Thylea. Maenads are evil monstrous women transformed after a loved one tricks or betrays them as part of a ritual to Lutheria. Maenads are more or less always Evil and live to kill: the union of a maenad and satyr produces a goatling, who are Small-sized monsters with goat heads who are fond of taunting people in combat. The Mossy Temple is slightly shorter than the Mithral Mines, being 16 rooms. The PCs also have more opportunities to encounter potential allies, such as an insane gnome who remains wildshaped in squirrel form whenever possible. There’s also a non-evil pair of satyrs* and a dryad who are ambassadors for the non-evil fey unsuccessfully trying to convince Demetria to stop kidnapping and torturing people. Two of them cannot provide direct aid in combat, but can tell them a bit of the dryad’s backstory: the Dragonlord Estor Arkelander cut down her sister’s tree to help build his ship, which is why she’s now evil. Finally there Corinna, one of the teenage revelers who can talk sense into her friends. *One of the satyrs, Loreus, is not like others of his kind: he prefers the fanciful fiction of stories and poetry, and happens to be big fans of the PCs thanks to their exploits. He’ll fall in love with the party member who is the nicest to them, and if possible will covertly follow them and use his pan pipes to put to sleep a foe who begins to get the upper hand in combat. The Temple’s dangers are nicely varied, ranging from animated root traps, camouflaged oozes in a stagnant pool, nonflying gargoyle statues that come to life if an offering is not left in a sacrificial bowl, and violently drunk goatling and maenads. The treasure has some non-standard options: two gardens can be harvested for non-magical Goodberries, truth serum, and poison to those with the proper proficiencies Demetria and her gygan bodyguard are in one of the temple’s last rooms, hosting a feast for four girls. She is wary of the PCs but will try to engage them in conversation to buy herself some time. In reality the meat of the meal is the flesh of several murdered teenage boys, and she told the four girls that they’re away in the forest to explain their absence. The PCs can convince the girls of the truth if they visited the kitchen and found out what the meat was made of, if the crazy gnome is still with the PCsand will point this out, or if Corinna is with them and trusts the party. Otherwise, the girls will transform into maenads as they dig in, and will attack the PCs along with Demetria and the gygan. If the party convinces the girls of the truth, they’ll automatically pin down Demetria for 3 rounds but will die if the PCs don’t protect them from the gygan. Also, some of the squickier elements of this chapter: the troglodytes and goatlings have babies among their number who can walk upright, the former case will attack the PCs and which the text explains as a ‘moral dilemma.’ Child-killing is a recurring plot element in this adventure path, albeit in most other cases is a thing done by villains rather than the heroes. Demetria has also been having sex with the teenagers offscreen. Although their ages are never stated, it’s still a creepy and predatory behavior given her intentions and the power differentials even if they all happen to be 18-19 years old. Once the Horn of Balmytria is recovered and drunk from, the PCs will enter a collective trance where they imagine themselves upon the deck of a trireme ship rowed by undead oarsmen, a strange bronze construct in their hands. PCs skilled in the ways of visions or a suitable NPC can interpret their dream as being on the deck of the Ultros, an infamous ghost ship once commanded by the Dragonlord Estor Arkelander. Only one of his descendants would know the location of the ship: King Acatus, ruler of the city-state of Mytros. Acastus’ ancestral legacy is common knowledge in the setting, so it should be trivial for the PCs to find out about this. Epic Paths: Demetria recognizes the Doomed One on sight, will tell them that they are destined to die at the grace of Lutheria, and say that only the Fates can say more. If the PCs happen to be the “kill first, ask questions later” this information will be revealed to them once they drink from the Horn. She also possesses one of the Haunted One’s wish list magical items. Once attuned, they will hear the voice of a family member’s soul, explaining that the other family artifact is in the hands of the Amazon Queen. The Necropolis at Telamok  Cave Dungeon? Check. Ruins Dungeon? Check. Graveyard Dungeon? Checkaroony! Rounding out our Great Labors is a place where the party Cleric can go Turn-happy. But unlike the typical graveyard, the Necropolis is located outside any major population center and is forbidden to all but a select few. It is where the Dragonlords’ bodies were laid to rest, presided over by Damon the lich undertaker. This undead archmage is on the lookout for grave-robbers, necromancers, and general-purpose defilers. The PCs will pass more of Kentimane’s arms on the way here and also get accosted by harpies who will try to use their songs to make them fall off the cliffs. The Necropolis itself is a mist-shrouded valley where undead will be endlessly summoned should the PCs try to climb or fly past its edges. Several bridges (all but one of which are broken) are guarded over by Damon, who will let the PCs pass if they present him the Burnished Dragonlord Coin Kyrah gave to them way back during the boar hunt. He will use nonlethal magic to those who try and pass otherwise at first, becoming lethal should they persist or fight him. Epic Path: Damon otherwise says nothing, but to the Cursed One he will give a Gem of Brightness, one of their family heirlooms. He will tell them to seek out the Lotus Witch of Scorpion Island, for she knows how to break their family curse. A generous amount of page space is given over to the tombs of various Dragonlords, which are much greater risk than reward: although a few have some nice magic items, they’re guarded by some nasty traps. Even if the PCs successfully abscond with the goods they’ll be afflicted with the Curse of the Graverobber which will slowly starve them to death. Kyrah is uncharacteristically quiet in the tomb of Estor Arkelander; she has some bad history with the Dragonlord, and regrets the atrocities he committed during the First War but will not wish to speak of it to the PCs. One of the Dragonlord tombs houses one of their number who converted to Sydon as a symbolic gesture of peace: trying to rob it will teleport one of the offending PCs to Sydon’s throne room in Praxys, where he will most assuredly kill the offender. But there is one tomb they can purloin without (much) negative consequence: the Tomb of Xander, which houses the treasure needed for this Great Labor! It’s a mazelike dungeon patrolled by the insane minotaur Graxis the Butcher, whose tribe were cursed to be the Necropolis’ guardians at the end of the First War. His brethren became skeletons which are one of the more common monsters encountered here, but he managed to not become undead through SHEER WILLPOWER. Graxis can be encountered either at the end of the dungeon or as a random encounter, and the maze has a few traps, such as the classic “spiked walls closing in” that can be disabled via pulling a lever or opening a portcullis. If Graxis is still alive, he will confront the PCs in the true tomb, getting there via Plotportation. During the battle the resting Dragonlord will raise as a wight and hand one of the PCs his Axe but otherwise not intervene in combat. Once victorious, the PCs can claim the magical breastplate and mundane (but very pretty) shield from the tomb. The Axe and Shield are damaged and thus must be repaired at the Mithral Forge. Epic Path: Xander will mention that Commander Gaius, the leader of the Order of Sydon, has stolen the Vanished One’s armor and keeps it safe in a fortress at the Isle of Yonder. Xander also has a Crown of the Dragonlords to give to said PC (or the Gifted One) in addition to the existing treasure. If the party includes both the Vanished One and Gifted One, he has TWO CROWNS instead! Inter-Labor Encounters: The world at large is not docile while the PCs are going out and about. After the first Great Labor is completed, Commander Gaius will track down the party and make a dramatic entrance on his silver dragon mount, gloating at how their quest is a lost cause and call forth a centaur warband to attack the party as he flies off.* After the second Great Labor is completed, Lutheria will give them another spooky dream the next time they rest, where they see a man with stitched-shut eyes, ears, and mouth in a beautiful valley. They must make a Wisdom saving throw or gain a long-term madness that can only be magically healed. *I do feel that if the party has the Vanished One and the Necropolis was the first Great Labor completed, then they may misread this encounter and try to chase after Gaius even though he’s meant to be a foreshadowing of things to come. Also after the Second or Third Labor (DM’s discretion) is completed, a trio of Mytrosian soldiers mounted on copper dragons will find the PCs and explain that they bear summons from King Acastus: Sydon has sent a hurricane to the city, and they need the PCs to come to their aid. They will plead for the heroes to come but otherwise not force them, mentioning that Acastus will punish them if they come back empty-handed. Said soldiers are part of Acastus’ attempt at restoring the order of Dragonlords, who are not looked fondly upon by Kyrah and the gods due to being a poor imitation at best. The relevant quests and city of Mytros is covered in the next chapter all on its own. So yes, the chapters in these cases can be played out of order potentially, which I like for providing a relative sense of freedom. Thoughts So Far: Overall I like the three Great Labors. Their main weaknesses is that they are quite lethal for such a low-level party, particularly the troglodytes and some of the room traps whose damage can easily lead to a TPK. But I do like how they are tied into aspects of Thylea’s history and grant the PCs several chances to learn of what came before. The addition of sidequests is a neat concept, but the ones here feel a bit simple (retrieve dwarven skulls, rescue these NPCs, etc) in comparison to ones we see later in the adventure path. The demanded sacrifice of Pythor’s daughter is a bit of a low point, if only due to the fact that it has a rather restrictive expected outcome in that the text presumes the PCs will offer themselves up as sacrifices. It also highlights some of the plot holes in this adventure path regarding the Oath of Peace’s vagueness. Additionally, Pythor feels more like a Thor expy than an Ares: his red hair, the image of a drunken bon vivant, and using a signature hammer as a weapon feels more Norse mythology than Greek mythology. Join us next time as we visit the Big Olive in Chapter 3: Summoned by the King! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Apr 11, 2020 |
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Apr 11, 2020 06:18
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Angry Salami posted:What's with all the 'good taste' or 'snob' themed merits and flaws? It seems like they're expecting PCs to either be neo-Nazis or Frasier Crane.
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Apr 11, 2020 06:38
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Nessus posted:You know how D&D has like a deep bedrock core rooted in concepts derived from wargamings? For World of Darkness, at least before the nWoD/CoD/etc. era, the deep bedrock core was high school. Also, just generally there was a pretty strong, if often... not very nuanced theme of class conflict running through old world of Darkness. It was part of the "punk" side of "Gothic Punk" aesthetic. See also, Camarilla (particularly as exemplified by the Ventrue) versus the Anarchs, Silver Fangs versus most of the rest of the Garou Nation, or the Sidhe versus the commoner houses.
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Apr 11, 2020 07:57
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Aethyron posted:Hunter: the Reckoning - Player's Guide I'd just like to point out that Hunter: the Reckoning and the later Demon: the Fallen were treated as sister games of a sort, and the Demon: the Fallen Player's Guide would go on to reprint most of these Merits and Flaws from the Hunter book rather than write its own list. So if you played as a fallen angel of creation possessing a human body, making pacts to claim souls and developing your own cult of belief to reconstitute your lost glory, you were still encouraged to engage in the point economy of No Phone, Good Credit Rating, Alimony Payments, and yes, Abusive Partner, Stalked, and Political Radical. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Apr 11, 2020 |
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Apr 11, 2020 10:29
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Hunter: the Reckoning - Player's Guide Part Four (and a half): Breaking the social system Okay so the average difficulty for stuff is 6 right? So I'm going to spend 1 point on Good Listener, thus lowering the difficulty of social rolls that involve talking to me by 2. I will then spend another 1 point on Smooth for -2 difficulty on Manipulation rolls. Follow that up with Enchanting Voice (2 points) for -2 difficulty on rolls where I persuade, charm, seduce, or order people to do things. At which point I'm pretty sure I've reduced the difficulty of a normal Manipulation roll I make where my character opens their mouth to zero. Well, 1, because 1s always botch. Good use of 4 points. Now let's take Fashion Sense (2) and prepare to argue that dressing well is always helpful for a further -1 to the difficulty of Manipulation rolls where people talk to me and I'm wearing the right pants. I'll spend 2 more to grab People Person and structure all my Manipulations so that the other people feel good about me for another -2. We're now up to -9 difficulty on Manipulation rolls where: people talk to me, hear my voice, admire my outfit, and I hope to create a good impression (perhaps by leveraging my cool clothes). So that was uhhh 8 points now let's start stacking the dice pool. Might as well throw 1 point at Natural Politician. What situation doesn't involve an element of politics? Rules-As-Written, Flirt works on everyone regardless of if I fit their preference so its in (2). Great Liar, obviously (2). Corporate Savvy (3) because who isn't employed by a corporate entity? For-profit isn't specified, so let's get ready to be annoying about the definition there. Depending on how many of those I can stack I might be getting +4 to +8 dice to all of my -9 difficulty rolls. That was 16 of my 21 points so I might as well throw in Approachable, Good Taste, Gossip, and Way With Words (1 each) to broaden the range of social situations where I can pick up bonuses, and we'll top it off with Concentration (1) just to make it that much harder for the Storyteller to add penalties. No Flaws. Or, if I wanted to buy a few of my social Abilities over 3 I could grab Icy Demeanor (1) to actually make it harder to catch me in a lie. Stubborn (1) also actually sort of works as a defense against Social rolls against me so that's in. Defensive (1) has no mechanical effect. Taking Compulsive Liar (2) actually seems like it would help me always be making the types of rolls I want to make anyway and since Ability dots cost 2 Freebies I'll grab Intolerant Neighbors (1) so that nobody can break into my house without triggering a call to the cops, for 6 points of Flaws. Or throw in being a smoker or some other does-nothing Flaw for the 7th point if I really wanted to. Also obviously I took Manipulation 5 and I could have Subterfuge 5 so I think my best case scenario is probably something like rolling 18 dice at -9 difficulty. Aethyron fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Apr 11, 2020 |
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Apr 11, 2020 11:01
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I do think difficulty caps at TN 2, but you would of course have a lot more headroom for especially difficult rolls. I believe we are now required to subscribe to this character's podcast, or else secretly support the Bad Person.
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Apr 11, 2020 11:10
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GimpInBlack posted:Also, just generally there was a pretty strong, if often... not very nuanced theme of class conflict running through old world of Darkness. It was part of the "punk" side of "Gothic Punk" aesthetic. See also, Camarilla (particularly as exemplified by the Ventrue) versus the Anarchs, Silver Fangs versus most of the rest of the Garou Nation, or the Sidhe versus the commoner houses. It's always been kind of entertaining to see how those break down when plopped in front of your average player. Like with Vampire, you get the cool titles if you work in Camarilla and then you can run things yourselves. Werewolf... well, honestly, I never saw a lot of people play Silver Fangs (save myself, because they're honestly my favorite tribe because tragedy's pretty cool). Changeling was the biggest. If you want to encourage people to not play something like sidhe, don't give them the royal titles and even worse two extra Appearance points because that stuff is like catnip. And then kinda went and did commoner sidhe anyway (or Autumn sidhe in C20).
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Apr 11, 2020 17:17
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A friend played a scathach sidhe, one of the ones who stuck around when the rest of the sidhe hosed off for Arcadia. My nocker, who had four or five dots in the past life merit and ancestral nightmares of the Accordance War, howled with laughter when he found out the self-styled nobles ditched their own in the scramble to flee. For me, the best part of that changeling was paying the lippiest of lip service to the SCA wankery the sidhe imposed. That's sadly not saying much.
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Apr 11, 2020 20:16
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I am going to do a "review' of Frog God Games' Book of Lost Spells. Because it gets silly. Silly in a very, very good way. A running theme of these spells is "Necromancers are dicks and you shouldn't let any players be a Necromancer."
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Apr 11, 2020 20:19
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 Heart: The City Beneath 04 - Character Creation - Equipment, Resources and the basics of Classes So, before I dive into the good bits (i.e. the classes, which are every bit as fun as those in Spire), I thought I really should go over equipment and resources. The book deals with them after the classes section, but there's quite a bit of interaction between the resource system and PC abilities, so it makes sense to talk about them first. Equipment This is anything that can augment character's rolls; usually by letting them inflict or heal more stress than the basic d4. It falls into three main categories, each tied to a Skill; Kill equipment is all weapons, which have a die value (d6 for run of the mill stuff, d8 for the good gear, d10 or d12 for exotic or legendary weapons), and a list of tags, such as Ranged (self-explanatory) or Dangerous/Expensive/Distressing/Loud/Wyrd which inflicts d6 Blood/Supplies/Mind/Fortune/Echo stress on the user if you roll the maximum stress. Delve equipment is used for going from place-to-place in the Heart. Inflicting stress on a delve is how you make progress through the ever-changing terrain of the Heart, so delve equipment includes anything that helps you get from Point A to Point B, without ending up at Point Z.  Obviously not all delve equipment is applicable to every situation, but otherwise it generally behaves like Kill equipment - including having tags that limit or augment their use. Finally, Mend equipment can be used to remove stress from a character's resistances, at least Blood (bandages, surgical gear), Mind (drugs, mostly) and Supplies (scavenging, good delving supplies, spare materials). Fortune and Echo stress is much harder to get rid of, short of suffering Fallout, and can often only be reduced at a Haven. In addition to this, the GM might hand out unique or single-purpose gear that won't directly inflict stress. This generally gives access to a Knack rather than having a dice type or any tags. A final note is that there is no armour in Heart - the most you can get is a single piece of equipment with the Block tag, which gives +1 Blood protection - it's assumed all characters have protective gear anyway, and armour is baked into the class abilities. Equipment is much more formally defined in Heart than in Spire, and in the latter most of your Blood protection came from armour rather than class advances. The addition of more game-facing mechanics makes sense given the focus of each game - in Spire, your gear is mostly cosmetic, plus whatever weapons you're carrying, whereas in Heart a delver's equipment is of paramount importance. You go into the Heart ill-prepared, and things are not going to go well. Resources Like Equipment, characters will also amass Resources. Like Equipment, each item of Resources has a dice associated with it, representing value and/or rarity - d4 is common, d8 is rare, d12 is unique or remarkable items. Resources, however are also linked to a specific Domain - a Haven d6 resource might be a pouch of coins, whereas an Echo d8 resource might be the organs of a Heartsblood beast, or scrapings of the edritch mould growing on the walls of a long-abandoned Vermissian station. They may also have tags, often acting as hooks for Fortune fallout to trigger - Fragile resources might get damaged, or you might find it hard to shift a Taboo resource. Mostly, characters will find, scavenge or steal resources from the people, creatures and places they find on their travels. They're spent on character abilities, to buy new equipment, or to remove stress - although whether the aforementioned bag of coins, or a string of teeth stolen from a graveyard is more useful depends on who you are, or where you're trying to buy stuff. Most doctors will take cash or medical supplies for example (usually Haven), but some more unusual services will accept more unusual resources as payment. The resources system is entirely new to Heart, along with a better indicator of how to buy/sell gear - once again this makes more sense in a game which is focussed around what is essentially dungeon delving. Classes The good stuff! Whereas Callings are why your character is even in the City Below, and how their arc will progress, Classes give them the set of tools they'll need to try to survive the experience. They're pretty simple in practice; your class gives you one Skill, and one Domain, some starting equipment and resources, as well as one or two Core Abilities, which are key to the class's flavour and mechanics. Finally, you'll pick three Minor Abilities - small advantages and improvements, and one Major Ability, which is more character-defining. The latter also each have three Minor Abilities that can be taken to customize them further, and are alot more varied in how they impact play. Standalone minor abilities are pretty simple, and there's some similarities between classes. Each class has a total of thirteen to pick from, included three semi-shared abilites, which grant either a Skill, a Domain, or +1 Protection to one of four of the resistance tracks (the missing one varies by class). These can all be taken more than once, and are generally not as good as the more unique abilities. Next, every class bar one (the Hound) has two Minor Abilities that each give +2 to a resistance - the 'strong' resistances for that class. The rest generally each give two things; usually a Skill, a Domain, or +1 Protection, plus a unique perk. The Minor Abilities attached to Major ones are less formulaic, and tend to alter how the Major functions, although some grant semi-related perks instead. But enough of this, and on with the classes (next time)! Classes in Heart are far more 'balanced', both in game terms and narrative weight, and Abilities seem rather more substantial than Spire's Advances. The Major Abilities in particular are nicely customisable, and sit somewhere between Spire's Medium advances (for the Major alone) and High advances (once you have all the modifiers). Also the +1 Skill/Domain/Protection advances have been codified as abilities, and each class has one Protection value they can never increase through a repeatable buy. Next: The Cleaver, Deadwalker and Deep Apiarist
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Apr 11, 2020 23:00
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 The foundations of Mytros would be beautiful, were it not for the howling winds and storm clouds hovering over it. Peering out from the hurricane is the face of Sydon, who will dramatically lock eyes with the PCs and throw down a lightning bolt spell at the slowest-moving hero before disappearing back into the clouds. Most citizens are shuttered in their homes, so establishments, side quests, etc are locked off from the party until they find a means to assuage Sydon’s wrath. After the PCs are railroaded to the palace, they meet King Acastus and his royal court. Already things are amiss; although he’s married to Vallus the Goddess of Wisdom, he’s not eager to listen to her, and Commander Gaius is one of his advisors along with Chondrus, a tiefling priest of Lutheria. His court cannot agree on anything, each with their own ideas on how to dispel the storm. So Vallus declares that the PCs should be the tiebreaker. The PCs have four (technically six) choices. King Acastus suggests that the PCs, mighty as they are, should be able to dispel the storm with magic and will express his disappointment if they cannot. Unfortunately nothing less than an 8th-level weather-based spell can work. But it is possible to do this; the Mithral Forge is capable of forging a Boreal Harp which can cast Control Weather as one of its spells, but as time is of the essence Acastus won’t wait around for the 4 days necessary to craft it (Mytros will be demolished by then). A Boreal Harp can be found as a reward in a random encounter, and also gained as the reward for a sidequest in the city. But given that said sidequests are locked off until the storm’s dealt with and the harp is not one-use, this feels like the writers retconned things at some point. Gaius will declare that demolishing the Temple of the Five will appease Sydon. Destroying the temple will cause the Five Gods (save Mytros) to suffer a permanent level of exhaustion, not to mention cause a huge loss in faith and public support for said gods due to this weakness. Bella, the king’s concubine, suggests that a hecatomb, or sacrificing 100 oxen, will work. It will, but the city’s economy cannot support this unless the PCs forward 10,000 gp to pay for the farmers’ losses. So I did the math of previous treasure in this AP, and discounting random die rolls on the DMG treasure table for monsters which would have to be very lucky to get that high, there’s nowhere near enough loot for this. As 5th Edition does not list prices for magic items save for crafting them, the best we have is a suggestion in the Xanathar’s Guide that adamantine versions of weapons and armor are worth 500 gp more than their base counterparts. There’s quite a bit of pre-forged mithral and adamantine weapons in the mines, but even if we assumed each were worth 500 GP each that’d only spot 65% of the required price. Queen Vallus, if asked for her idea, will suggest gathering the other gods to the court where the PCs must convince them to surrender a portion of their collective divine powers in order to perform a miracle. This is the same result as destroying the Temple in terms in causing permanent exhaustion, but will bolster public support rather than erode it and requires succeeding on a single reasonable DC 16 Persuasion check. The last choice is not really a choice at all. Chondrus suggests that Lutheria can intervene to talk some sense into Sydon, but only if the king demands seventy children of the city take up the black robes and be inducted into the Cult of Lutheria. Although Chondrus claims they’ll be treated well, everyone else knows that the goddess shouldn’t be let within 300 feet of a school and those present will vehemently argue against this, Gaius included. Vallus will threaten to kill Chondrus before she’ll allow this to happen, Oath of Peace or no. If you’re wondering if sacrificing the boar to Sydon would work, it would...if an in-game week has not passed since said event. The boon of said sacrifice only keeps the skies clear and beautiful for that long; any more and the Lord of Storms is no longer beholden to making things easy for the PCs. Regardless of how the PCs resolve the crisis, Sydon upholds his Lawful end of the Lawful Evil bargain and the skies clear up immediately. King Acastus will give the party a scroll containing the map to the Ultros as a reward, and encourage them to leave the city with haste. In reality the king is an incredibly arrogant man, fearful that the PCs’ exploits will overshadow his own. He also made a bargain with Lutheria to give him some metallic dragon eggs and some aging potions to rapidly grow said dragons in an attempt to restore the order of Dragonlords. This too is a secret he fears the PCs may also find out in time. The party can also meet Queen Vallus in the palace, who will vaguely warn them that her husband’s intentions are less than altruistic. Should the PCs try to meet with Icarus, Acastus’ silver dragon mount, they’ll find him to be huge and mighty but with the mind and maturity of someone just approaching adolescence. The City of Mytros  The oldest, largest, and most iconic city of Thylea, the history of Mytros is the history of the Five Gods and the Dragonlords. It is a city with clean streets, hillside burgs commanding great views of the surrounding land, and free healthcare where temple acolytes hand out healing magic to needy citizens as part of their duties. Even though one of its Colossi was destroyed in battle with the Kraken, the remaining Colossus of Pythor stands eternally vigilant over the harbor. Its major blight is Stygian Row, a crime-ridden slum where tieflings are ghettoized, and a thriving slave trade in minotaurs which is encouraged by the Order of Sydon. Queen Vallus hates this, but finds her attempts at abolition thwarted by her husband and various economic interests among the upper class. Trope Alert: Main City of Sidequest Attractions: A huge portion of this chapter details the various major locations and optional subplots of the city. We have quite a few minor sidequests, but two are large enough to merit their own entries.While in Mytros, the PCs can… ...culturally oppress some Sydon worshipers who maintain the right to sacrifice a minotaur slave. Said minotaur slave is Bullbug, a pseudo-DMPC party member the PCs can recruit for their eventual voyage during the seafaring portion of the campaign. He’s a jovial sort with a self-deprecating sense of humor. ...offer some centurion investigators or a merchant trafficking in minotaur slaves help in bringing the Lady of Coins to justice. Said Lady of Coins runs the Cult of the Snake, a thieves’ guild whose side hobby is disrupting Mytros’ peculiar institution. ...gently caress up said slaver by robbing his estate with sample stats and DCs for guards and locked doors and treasure chests. ...get into a bar brawl in the roughest tavern while investigating the Lady of Coins. ...get petitioned by either Queen Vallus or a sex worker to look into the local Cult of Lutheria by gathering evidence against their misdeeds. Freeing the kidnapped children from their temple basement will do much to delegitimize them in the eyes of the public. ...meet the brother-sister/husband-wife high priests of said cult, who will seek to buy the Horn of Balmytria off of the PCs. Otherwise they will try to ambush and kill them if they refuse. But before that, they may hire the party to take care of some satyrs and bandits who stole their wine shipment. Said satyr will make a counter-offer to the PCs to kill the cultists, and give them the Harp but smash it before giving it to them. He is kind of a dick even if he hates the Cult. ...meet a homeless philosopher in the public gardens, who can give oddly-useful advice in the form of a divination spell should the PCs win him over with free food and alcohol. ...debate some philosophers at the Academy, who challenge them with Ancient Greek paradoxes (Ship of Theseus, Achilles and the Tortoise, etc) but with setting-specific character replacements. PCs who manage to give a convincing explanation (these questions don’t have a binary yes/no solution) can get signed copies of the philosophers’ greatest works, which grant proficiency in Arcana to those who read them. ...help a young nobleman smitten with Queen Vallus to get senpai to notice him. The tables are turned when Vallus asks him to bring a mortal of unsurpassed beauty and wisdom to her audience. The nobleman chooses an appropriate PC, and after extolling their virtues he gets over Vallus and falls for them instead. ...buy actual magical items at shops. And not just consumables like potions, but actual permanent items too! Colossus of Pythor  The Cult of the Snake is one of the bigger subplots in this chapter, and the Lady of Coins’ secret headquarters is in the Colossus of Pythor. This is a vertical six-room mini-dungeon guarded by human thugs, minotaurs, and a pair of marble golems. Two of the rooms’ foundations for powering the Colossus serve as traps in a pinch: a series of tubes which can pump gas and vapors of various poisons into the room, and the statue’s “heart” contains a great furnace which can shoot out a jet of flame. The Colossus’ head is home to Moxena, the Lady of Coins. The sister to the current Queen of the Amazons, she was exiled after attempting a coup when the leaders of the Island of Themis turned to worshipping Lutheria. Moxena is also a medusa, and is using her talents to gain power and resources in hopes of starting a second revolution in her island home. Her abolitionism of minotaur slaves is not entirely altruistic, for she seeks to use their gratitude as soldiers for her cause. She herself dabbles in the slave trade by selling petrified bards of no small talent to the dragon Hexia on the Island of the Dragon. The PCs can kill or capture Moxena, but they can also make an ally of her: she knows of a legendary sword, Titansbane, upon the Amazons’ Island of Themis which can prove useful against Sydon and Lutheria’s forces. The  This is the other big sidequest in Mytros, one with some fancy rewards and bragging rights. The Great Games are a supposedly apolitical annual event where the greatest athletes from across Thylea come to win fame and glory for themselves and their respective cultures. The PCs are encouraged to participate should they show interest. In addition to fancy medals, the grand prize is a Crown of Laurels, a magic item which grants +2 to Wisdom saving throws to the attuned wearer. The Great Games are a week-long event with one competition per day. Contestants can choose one (and only one) spellcaster to magically enhance them (and only them), and the judges are spellcasters who employ divination to ensure a fair game. The PCs will compete against eight other gladiators, who all have their own names, relevant stats, and brief descriptions of their personalities and homelands. Some interesting examples include an arrogant Aresian who has a ‘heel’ reputation in Mytros, a stylish bard with a crowd of lovestruck fans, and an aloof Amazon who is the first of her tribe to compete in the Games. The Great Games traditionally open up with an animal sacrifice, but ever since the Order of Sydon sponsored events they began sacrificing minotaur slaves in ritual combat. The PCs can totally throw a wrench in their bloodthirsty rites by offering to fight the minotaur to a non-lethal standoff, or even alongside the minotaur. If Bullbug has not been rescued or purchased, he may be the sacrificial victim and will call out to the PCs to fight him instead. Queen Vallus will honor such unorthodox suggestions, if only to piss off the Order. You can tell that Bullbug is a bit of a fan-favorite for the writers. The individual games include long jumping, a short-distance sprint, javelin throwing, discus throwing, wrestling, and boxing, all with their own rules and die rolls for completion. Each has a ‘trial event’ to weed out the wheat from the chaff, and the wrestling and boxing trial events involve going up against black bears named Crusher and Smasher (the latter one wears bronze-plated boxing gloves). The final competition, the Great Relay, is a five-part marathon and the highlight of the Games. Each segment has its own trials and skill checks: outrunning lions on the beach, swimming beneath a magically-frozen lake and resurfacing in holes cut in the ice, climbing up cliffs, dashing across a bed of hot coals filled with fire snakes, and running across a beach full of caged harpies whose songs can veer athletes off-course. A lucky PC who wins first place in even one event will be approached by tavern owners to sponsor their establishments in exchange for money in the form of a bidding war. The Ghost Ship Ultros  But enough of the side attractions! What of the main plot? Well, King Acastus’ information is genuine, and the map will lead the PCs to the ghost ship’s current location. The bad news is that Acastus intentionally forgot to tell them of the dangers of the area. The Dead Falls are dangerous rapids whose waters are said to lead to the underworld, and the imposing cliff’s rock formations are in the shape of screaming mouths. Rock formations who can come to life and either crush people to death or push them off into the deadly surf below. The Ultros itself is a spooky two-level ghost ship haunted by spectres. The PCs can find a journal of a crewman which elucidates on some non-public historical knowledge of the setting: Estor Arkelander was a ruthless Dragonlord who sought to reduce the native Thylean races into servitude, and he was a total Blood Knight who got off on sowing pain and fear. He also spearheaded the near-genocide of the gygan people to the protests of his bronze dragon mount, who in turn abandoned him. It was Arkelander’s actions which caused Lutheria to petition Sydon for aid and abandon his vow not to harm the settlers.* He joined her in raising an army, thus beginning the First War. *a bit of a plot hole, as the consequences for oathbreaking by a god are far greater than if a mortal does it, as we’ll find out much later in the adventure path. PCs exploring the ship will undertake a trippy dream sequence where the Ultros seemingly dives beneath the waves, passing by many wonders and horrors of the deep but keeping the water out. During this time they come face to face with the ghostly visage of Estor Arkelander, who promises to pass the mantle of captain to the party if they track down and kill the traitors among his crew. Only after doing so will they be released from the dreamlike state. The three crew members can be encountered elsewhere in the ship as ghosts and fought as such. Once the PCs have done so, he will transfer ownership of the Ultros to them, but also offers them the honor of being his ‘successor.’ He words the phrasing so as to make it seem like it’s part of them becoming captain, so PCs can still refuse but get ownership of the Ultros. A PC who accepts will be possessed by him for an hour, but the consequences are longer-term. Their alignment will permanently shift to Neutral Evil, they become crueler in disposition, and have an obsessive need to become immortal. Estor Arkelander can hijack the PC’s body once per day with no saving throw, and will try to bargain for longer periods by offering various knowledge and advice to the party. If nobody accepts Estor’s offer, he’ll remain as an angry (yet harmless) ghost on the ship for the duration of its days. quote:Eventually, Estor's control over the hero may become permanent (which forces the character to retire as an NPC), but this should only happen if the player's behavior has become too disruptive to the rest of the party. I’m not exactly a fan of this. Permanent changes to a character’s personality, along with the implication that this can lead to disruptive gameplay, and how the GM has free reign to foster PC on PC violence, leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. The Ultros will sail into the harbor of Mytros on its own, to the shock of everyone present. King Acastus will view this as a personal affront and fly in on his dragon Icarus, talking about how “we need ships and not dragons to fight the Titans” and backhandedly compliment the intent of their efforts if not the result. But the people of Mytros have grown used to seeing the king’s dragon by now and are still much more impressed by the ghost ship. Thoughts So Far: There’s an awful lot of stuff to do in Mytros, and many of the side treks have notable rewards and alternative outcomes. The pseudo-Olympics Great Games is a killer concept, and I like how they didn’t make all the events predictable “gladiator combat” affairs. Even so, a few of the quests and encounters feel that they have a ‘strong push’ a certain way: the Boreal Harp solution to Sydon’s storm would be the kind of thing you’d find on multiple playthroughs were this a video game, and there’s little indication for how to gain an audience with the Lady of Coins without cutting your way through the Colossus beyond what the DM improvises. Given that there’s been a lot of foreshadowing that Estor Arkelander is one bad dude, I’m a bit disappointed that the adventure presumes the PCs would go along with hunting down supposedly traitorous crew members rather than alternatives like starting an undead mutiny. Even so, the open-ended nature of Mytros, combined with the prior chapters, shows that Odyssey of the Dragonlords’ default adventure path can be played many different ways even within the context of its prewritten material. Join us next time as we head on to the next big portion of the campaign, an open-ended seafaring island crawl in Chapters 4 & 5: Voyage of the Ultros and the Cerulean Gulf! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 02:32
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Libertad! posted:The PCs can kill or capture Moxena, but they can also make an ally of her: he knows of a legendary sword, Titansbane, upon the Amazons’ Island of Themis which can prove useful against Sydon and Lutheria’s forces. Slight typo there. Also I would call Bullbug a trope because he just sorta reminds me of Wrex in so many ways.
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Apr 12, 2020 02:47
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Cooked Auto posted:Slight typo there. Typo fixed! I'll leave Bullbug's trope-worthy status to be debated among the forum, for I am just one voice.
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Apr 12, 2020 03:27
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Bieeanshee posted:A friend played a scathach sidhe, one of the ones who stuck around when the rest of the sidhe hosed off for Arcadia. I kind of loved Changeling because of the disparity of comparable foes, like: Vampire: Human hunters who know your weaknesses and come after you at daytime. Werewolf: Twisted abominations of flesh and spirit working for an evil mega-corporation. Mage: Actual loving Terminators imbued with anti-magic. Wraith: Your own death-wish tempting you to destruction. Changeling: The mean old man who owns a toy store but doesn't believe in fairies. Like, running crossovers with Changeling would be kind of hilarious. Hmm, there's a [whatever the hell Changeling magic items were called] in that store that the mean old man owns. Who should we send in to retrieve it. Hey, what about Rips-Out-Livers, the Get of Fenris who's in the party? Old Man: Aren't you a little old to be playing with toys? Fenris: .... A little later. Sidhe: Oh, you got the thingie. What's this stuff on it? Fenris: Blood and brain matter. It'll wipe off. Everyone fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 10:25
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Everyone posted:I kind of loved Changeling because of the disparity of comparable foes, like: That was something about old Changeling I could never really get past- if none of the stuff that's happening is "real" in any sense to anyone who isn't a Changeling, the stakes just don't seem quite as high. Like, you can disbelieve the Antediluvians or the Wyrm. There are still tangible evil vampires and werewolves who can do real damage to the things your characters care about. If a Changeling only has Changeling friends then the stakes are plenty high, but it seems like it'd be pretty hard for evil changelings to actually do anything to a PC's mortal friends or family with their magic. My knowledge of oChangeling is pretty scanty though, so maybe I'm just coming at it from the wrong angle.
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Apr 12, 2020 18:16
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I was really surprised to see this hadn't been done yet, so hey. 1: If you hoop through the loop never loop it alone The background The first and important name in Tales From The Loop is Simon Stalenhag. The original inspiration for all of the related material is a series of his paintings juxtaposing childlike images of nature with technology that appears highly sophisticated yet has an old-fashioned appearance. You’ve probably seen them, but it’d be remiss not to include one, so here you go:  That’s The Remote Glove, probably the most used of the images, and also the one that inspired the banner image for the TV series (although the TV series changes the composition a bit to make it clear that the mech isn’t attacking the Police van). The earliest entry I could find related to his images was his website in 2012, which showed a number of artworks resembling the Tales from the Loop ones, albeit in a different style. It did contain a very small slice of what would later become the map of the Loop, although it wasn’t called that. It also listed his e-mail address at “futuregames.se”, which is a Stockholm-based computer game development studio, implying that the artwork was intended to be used in games - or to appeal to game developers - from the very beginning. The artwork recognisable from Tales From The Loop first appeared on his site in 2013, together with a reference to “Ripple Dot Zero”, a Flash based platform game which includes very Loop-style art in its backgrounds (although the majority of visible graphics in the game are simple platforms and pickups), and a piece of written fiction, “A day in the life of serviceperson Mikael Wirsen”, which seems to suggest a much greater focus on atomic energy than on an experimental particle accelerator. Around 2014, Fria Lagan (aka Free League) published a Swedish compilation of Stalenhag’s art with the title “Out of the Echo Sphere” (“Ur Varselklotet”), which consisted of a collection of the images interspersed with short vignette-like stories about growing up as a child in the futuristic environment they portrayed. These stories introduced the idea of "Slingan" - "the Loop" - the experimental particle accelerator and research facility hidden below the landscape. The first Kickstarter for the project was launched in April 2015 and was for an English translation of the artbook, retitled “Tales From The Loop”. The RPG was a stretch goal on this artbook Kickstarter, and was only just reached before the end. The stretch goal promised only that it would be an RPG set in the universe of Stalenhag’s paintings; it didn’t state anything further about what type of RPG it would be or what theme it would have. The artbook's textual vignettes themselves are mostly in the form of wistful recollections of childhood with sci-fi twists. A boy fools his friends by telling them that the daily horn warning for the flushing of the reactor cooling towers is actually a meltdown warning; a family grows up with a set of warnings taped to the fridge about the “Godel Pulses” produced by the Loop, and kids look forward to the strange momentary effects they produce; children come up with fantastic stories of having seen dinosaurs in the woods. The story associated with The Remote Glove is written from the view of the left-hand child who’s been going along with their friend while they snuck into an old building, found the glove and started messing with the robot, and then realised things were going too far when the police turned up. The final entry describes the decommissioning of the Loop occurring at the same time as the children grow into teenagers, making the real meaning plain: it’s presenting a view of childish fantasy from the view of a 80s child fascinated by science, who might fantasise about Loops below the ground more than secret coves at the bottom of the garden, and it’s not clear if any of it existed. In the book, the only “strange creatures” referred to as appearing due to the Loop are dinosaurs. Why? Because it’s a kid’s fantasies and kids think dinosaurs are cool. The pieces are well-written and charming, but most have very little in terms of a progressive narrative. In July 2016, Stranger Things first aired - which was about teenagers investigating mysteries in a supernatural environment created by a scientific research facility. And in November 2016, the Tales For The Loop Kickstarter launched, and was about.. teenagers solving mysteries in an environment created by a scientific research facility. A thoroughly strange follow-up to the art book, which is specifically about children rather than teens, and has very little investigation involved. Yes, the children do explore and find things, but the focus is much more on the wonder created by the fact the mysteries existed. Yet the Kickstarter placed “in the vein of ET and Stranger Things” front-and-centre in the paragraph description of the RPG. So, Fria Lagan had given themselves a surprisingly difficult task. Their sources were a series of paintings, obviously a visual medium, which they had to somehow fit into the primarily verbal experience of an RPG; and a series of vignettes covering exploration and discovery and wonder at the mysteries of the world, beautiful but not typically appealing to play, which they had to turn into the much more blunt and less emotional process of taking those mysteries and solving them so that all wonder in them is gone. Furthermore, Stranger Things focused heavily on the idea of a supernatural alternative world, whereas Stalenhag’s art was and writing had a strong scientific and technological focus (although one or two of the vignettes reference the supernatural, it isn’t at all common) - and unlike the later Tales From The Loop TV show, they didn’t have the option of using supernatural plots while using technological visual trappings, because visual trappings are much less effective in an RPG. What’s even odder than the task is who they chose to take it on. When you think about Free League RPGs, there’s one name that comes up over and over: Tomas Harenstam. The original rules designer for Mutant, and highlighted as a designer on Forbidden Lands, ALIEN, and almost every other Free League RPG book.. but not Tales From The Loop. For Loop, Harenstam took the subsidiary role as editor, and handed over the design reins to Nils Hintze, whose previous credits were highly acclaimed articles in the Swedish RPG magazine Fenix, named Himlastorm and The Secret of the Faceted Eye. I couldn’t find what else he’d done, but it seems an unusual choice - although Loop is substantially more rules-light than any of Harenstam’s variants on the Mutant engine. How did he do? Let’s see. The Rules Like Mutant, Loop’s stats are based on four stats with three governed skills each. Body contains Sneak, Force, and Move; Tech contains Tinker, Program and Calculate; Heart contains Contact, Charm, and Lead, and Mind contains Investigate, Comprehend, and Empathize. The separation of Mind from Tech is a bit awkward - it may be intended to represent the stereotype of the geek who’s incredibly smart with machine but nothing else; or it might just be that in the Loop setting, a single stat that combined abilities to investigate and use technology would be a god-stat. The only other numeric values that characters have are their Age and their Luck. A character's Age is always between 10 and 15 - ultimately the game did end up focussing on children as the artbook did, rather than teenagers as the Kickstarter stated. A character’s age equals the number of points they have to spend on stats (not skills); their luck points are equal to their 15 minus their age. In other words, each year above ten trades one Luck point for one point in a stat. Stats can range from 1-5, so the idea is that as a character grows up, they get more competent, but become less lucky. This works - as long as your players aren’t min-maxing. If they’re min-maxing, they’re going to want one stat right up to 5 out of the gate, which means that as their character ages they don’t get any better at it (they’ve already hit the cap) and may actually get worse (because they lose the luck points that they could spend to reroll the maxed-out stat). I’ll mention later how skill points work. In addition to these, each character has an Iconic Item, a Problem, a Drive, a Pride, Relationships and an Anchor. Problem and Drive are purely narrative: Problem describes what will cause the PC trouble, and Drive is what encourages them to investigate mysteries. (The standard text in all of the sample plots for “what happens if the PCs just don’t want to engage” is “Remind the players of their Drives.”) The others have mechanical effects which we’ll see in a moment. The dice system is simple. All rolls are Skill rolls. Add your stat and your skill, roll that number of d6, and you succeed if any of them is a 6. If you get more than one success, you can spend the extra successes on “bonus effects” specific to the Skill you rolled. If you get no successes, you can spend a Luck point (once) to reroll all your failures - unlike Mutant, failed dice that roll 1 are not “locked” in that state, and don’t cause attrition. You can also push your roll - again only once per roll - to get another reroll of your failures, but only at the cost of taking a damaging Condition. Your iconic item gives +2 to anything you use it to help with; your Pride gives you an automatic success on anything that relates to it, once per session or adventure depending on your game pacing. This can turn a failed roll into a success, or add an extra success to an existing roll. Loop doesn’t have Hit Points, nor does it apply damage to attribute values in the way Mutant does. Instead, there are four Conditions representing damage: Upset, Scared, Exhausted, and Injured. Each condition that you have applies a cumulative -1 penalty to all dice rolls. If you have to take a condition and all four are already taken, you’re Broken, which means you’re unable to go on or succeed at any rolls. An explicit rule is that Loop characters cannot die - they’re children, and if it comes to it they will always either escape or be rescued, although they might end up in trouble with their parents. This has a curious relationship to Mutant’s damage system. The four conditions correspond directly to the the four “trauma types” in Mutant - Doubt, Confusion, Fatigue and Damage. In Mutant, these damage your individual attribute values; in Loop, they give a universal negative modifier, so they effectively damage all your skill values. In Mutant you're broken if a single attribute is dropped to zero; in Loop you need to run up all four conditions to do that, and if you take a condition you already have you have to mark a different one, so additional points in an attribute don’t give you extra defence. This means that Loop characters are actually substantially more fragile than Mutant ones, although they also have more options for succeeding on rolls. This might be intentional, to represent that they’re children, but Loop is also meant to be a far less hostile setting than Mutant, so who knows. You can heal your conditions in two ways. You can go and hang out with your Anchor, which is the person you go to for comfort - usually a parent, but possibly a friend or other relative, although it can’t be another PC; or, go and hang out with another PC in your Hideout, which is the group’s choice of a home base for all of them. The GM is explicitly forbidden from introducing any danger when you do either of these, and NPCs will never find your Hideout unless you tell them where it is. So the system is much more heading towards PCs having to flee or escape when they are in danger than actually facing serious problems and death, which is quite fitting for the mood. The other tricky thing about the system is the way difficulty is expressed. Mutant gives negative dice pool modifiers for difficulty; Loop requires multiple successes - up to 3 - although it does emphasise that this should only be used for the hardest tasks. Using your Pride still only gives one success, so it can’t give an automatic victory on a roll that requires more than one success, although it can boost a roll into a victory. The game does provide a list of the probabilities of a single success on different numbers of dice. It doesn’t, however, provide that for multiple successes. Here’s the chart, listing the proportional penalty compared to one success in brackets. It doesn’t look good. pre:Successes Dice 1 2 3 1 17% Nil Nil 2 31% 3% (-91%) Nil 3 42% 7% (-84%) 1% (-98%) 4 52% 13% (-75%) 2% (-97%) 5 60% 19% (-69%) 4% (-94%) 6 66% 26% (-60%) 6% (-91%) 7 72% 33% (-55%) 10% (-87%) 8 76% 39% (-49%) 13% (-83%) 9 81% 46% (-44%) 18% (-78%) 10 84% 51% (-40%) 22% (-74%) There’s very few further rolling rules, nor is there an explicit combat system. NPCs never roll dice, so there are no special opposed roll rules, apart from if two PCs want to roll against each other, in which case it’s most successes wins. What there is with regard to opposed rolls is a rule that allows NPCs to be given “special attributes” - which aren’t stats at all but arbitrary phrases with associated numbers - which specify that rolls against them where that special attribute applies require 2 or 3 successes. On the one hand, I like the idea that (as in the example) saying that a river has “Wild Currents 2” makes it plain that trying to put anything in the river or build a bridge is likely to be as problematic as swimming over it. On the other hand, it seems to allow potentially negative interactions, such as a door having “High Security 3” and therefore having that against any attempt the kids make to pass through it, no matter how inventive. There is an an extended conflict system, where everyone gets to roll once and the total successes are pooled are compared to a target number which is a multiple of the number of players. As long as the group together get half of the successes needed, they can take conditions to buy successes directly instead of buying rerolls. Naturally, I had to try this out, although I could only do it by Monte Carlo analysis. If we assume a group of munchkins with using maxed skills (3), on maxed stats (5), and using Iconic Items (2) for 10 dice, then most of the time they will succeed at a “normal” extended conflict (2 successes per player) almost all the time, by spending Luck points on the initial rolls. A “hard” extended conflict (3 successes per player) will again mostly succeed, but there’s a much higher risk of then taking 1-2 Conditions in order to do so. An “almost impossible” conflict (4 successes per player) is much nastier, with PCs (as a group) taking an average of 4 conditions in order to succeed. But that’s with a perfectly minmaxed party. If we assume that not everyone has maxed skills, and that not everyone can use their single best skill in the conflict, then a slightly-above-average 6 dice per player is probably closer. At that point, even a “normal” challenge inflicts 1 condition, a “hard” one will inflict 4, and an “almost impossible one” will inflict 7 but with a 13.9% chance of failing to meet the initial threshold and being unable to succeed at all. And that’s with my system being quite generous and allowing people to decide to spend luck or push rolls after they’ve seen everyone else’s rolls, which has no basis in the book; without doing that, things would probably get much worse or more stressful for players. Still, the goal of the extended conflict rules is pretty clear - to fill in for combat (Mutant doesn't have any extended rules, but it has a combat system) by creating a similar system which delivers a similar outcome, that is a fairly reliable victory for the PCs but with variable amounts of attrition. It has the common problem with such rules, which is that the abstraction involved makes the PCs actions - and especially the players’ decisions about what to do - feel much less relevant. But it’s probably necessary, as a full tactical combat system would completely kill the mood. There’s also a section on what the skills do. I won’t summarise the whole thing, because in most cases it’s obvious, but there’s a few interesting things to note - especially in the “bought effects”, which you can trade successes for. First of all, almost all skills allow a bonus success to be used to give a success to another PC, creating teamwork. Second, several skills allow a bonus success to “avoid rolling to overcome the same Trouble in the future”; this includes Force - so it’s possible to beat someone up so well they just don’t bother you anymore. Most of the investigation skills work on the basis of asking the GM questions, and thus are very similar to the “Read the Situation” moves from PbtA games, only without partial successes. There are only two skills which seem potentially problematic. The first is Move, which is noted as the skill most commonly used to dodge attacks, thus making it a nearly essential skill for everyone. To top it off, one of its bought effects is “No one notices you”, which potentially means that Move can stand in for Sneak - ok, the odds of getting an extra success aren’t always great, but no other skill subsumes another like that. The second is Lead. It has two effects: first of all, you can heal another PC’s condition without going to the hideout - that’s cool - but the second usage is that you can roll to lead the other PCs, creating a pool of 2-6 dice which other PCs can draw from only if they are following your instructions. This essentially gives a mechanical benefit for one of the players playing the quarterback, and potentially starts off the whole dumb argument about whether the players can discuss what to do and then have the leader PC tell them to do that, etc. (By the way, the Lead skill is pretty useless in extended conflicts - it creates its dice pool rather than counting successes towards the target number, which means it trades one PC’s roll for an extra 2-4 dice.) I haven’t mentioned yet how you get your skill levels. You get 10 points, but what you can spend them on is determined by your Type - yes, this game actually has character splats, although the distribution of skill points is almost the only thing it determines. Each type has three Key Skills, and you can put up to 3 points into those skills, and at most 1 into all of the others. Other than that, the types contain examples of Items, Problems, Drives, Prides and Anchors, but they’re only suggested values and there’s always the options to make your own. The eight types are Bookworm, Computer Geek, Hick, Jock, Popular Kid, Rocker, Troublemaker and Weirdo. Each has a page devoted to their key skills and examples, and also each has an illustration. The only created illustrator is Stalenhag, so I don’t know if these are also by him. Here’s the Computer Geek:  (Any real Computer Geek would know that carrying a Vic20 around without its brick-weight power supply would be kind of futile.) To avoid legal wrath, I’ll avoid listing the exact skill layout for every type. The majority of skills appear twice as Key Skills, except for Force and Move which appear three times (Force for the Hick, Jock and Troublemaker; Move for the Hick, Jock and Rocker), and Tinker and Program which appear once each (on the Hick and Computer Geek). Yes, you probably just noticed that the Hick, with Force, Move and Tinker, has potentially one of the best sets of Key Skills in the game. The two types who can Lead are the Popular Kid and the Troublemaker, potentially meaning that the “popular one” at the game table will end up playing the Popular Kid in the game too. They’re also pretty balanced in terms of stat dependence: almost every Type has two key skills connected to one stat, and the third connected to a different one - except for some reason the Popular Kid (whose skills all depend on Heart) and the Rocker (whose skills depend on three different stats, ouch) Also, and unfortunately, one of the potential example Prides for the “Weirdo” is “I’m not heterosexual”. Yes, ok, I get that they’re saying that this is something a person can be proud of in the sense of not needing to hide, but saying it’s a person’s defining thing they’re proud of is not quite the same, and putting it on a character type called the weirdo is somewhat unfortunate. As is the possibility of a player having to decide which rolls they are able to claim an automatic success at because their character isn’t heterosexual. That’s enough for now. Next time, we’ll look at the setting information and at the tips for creating Mysteries.
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Apr 12, 2020 19:11
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Heart: The City Beneath 05 - Classes - Cleaver, Deadwalker, Deep Apiarist So, now we get to the classes themselves. As well as a run-through the the class, I'll drop in a link to the design post Chris and Grant did over the months since the Kickstarter, as frankly they've already said most of what there is to day about the actual mechanical design, although some of the classes have moved on quite a bit since they were written. The Cleaver This is what you get if you take a D&D-style druid (with a touch of ranger) and shove them into the Heart (with a side-track into Monster Hunter). They're the ones who head out into the wilds of the City Below, pathfinders and scouts through the nightmare. They change themselves through illicit surgeries, taking a little bit of the Heart into their own bodies, giving them strange and unusual abilities. Cleavers start with Hunt and Cursed, along with a hunting knife and either a cleaver, bow or crude medical gear. They have two Core Abilites; Heartsblood gives them a minimum protection value for all resistances equal to the Tier they're currently on (0 for the City Above, 4 for the Heart itself), making them tougher the deeper they go. The Red Feast lets them eat a resource to gain the domain associated with that resource (particuarly toxic or non-palatable items need a roll), or a knack if they already have the domain. So they've already got the tools to let them survive pretty well anywhere. A Cleaver's minor abilities follow the common pattern; notably they can't get Mind protection through any of their class abilities - the path they take isn't conducive to sanity. Other abilities give them keener hunting instincts, natural weaponry or the ability to command simple animals.  The Cleaver's Major Abilities are; Bloodbound Beast - basically a cryptid animal companion, Chimeric Strain - wild-shape, basically; hulk out by taking Echo stress, Extinction Bow - gain a Monster-Hunter scale bow/siege weapon which can be upgraded to fire harpoons, Monstrous Appetite - heal from using The Red Feast and The Wild Hunt which lets you lead a group hunt or delve. As for the Zenith abilities, either you end up slaying the Beast; the Ur-creatue lurking deep within the heart, or maybe you die and the primeval Forest rushes in, creating a new landmark at your grave. Or maybe...  Cleaver Class Breakdown The Deadwalker Another ranger-analogue, with a touch of rogue, the Deadwalker is someone who nearly died, but for some reason didn't quite and now has their death sitting in the back of their head giving them (terrible) advice. Oh, and the ability to break back into the afterlife if needs be. They get Delve and Desolate and tTheir Core Abilities are Enter the Grey which lets them enter the space between the worlds of the living and the dead and move unseen and unheard, and...  Like the Cleaver, they can't get Mind protection. Their Minor abilities let them hunt prey they've marked, wield their death as a (one-shot) weapon or extinguish nearby light sources. Their Major abilities are Descent - using the Grey to break into one (or more) of the eight Heavens, either though ritual or brute force, Echoes which lets them see a ghostly recreation of the past, Invidious Spectre - their death manifests as poltergeist activity, Reaper's Strike - give up Blood protection to add it to stress inflicted and Sudden Death which let's them dive into the Grey without the prerequisite rituals. When they acheive their Zenith, it goes one of three ways, all of them fatal for the Deadwalker; they can draw a place, person or concept into a physical vessel, killing themselves and it in the process, drag a target into the Dark Place, dying in the process, or just die, tearing open a door to heaven and causing spontaneous miracles in the area (basically a full heal and massive buff to the rest of the party). They always go out with a bang. Deadwalker Class Breakdown The Deep Apiarist Do you like bees? Do you like little agents of order so much you would welcome them into your sinuses to make your body a hive-machine, to fight back the power of the Heart? That's who the Deep Apiarist is. They're a bit of a wizard/priest type; more of a support character than a straight-out combatant (unless fighting Heart-tainted creatures that is). They start with Mend and Occult and can never gain Mind protection - but this hurts them less than you'd think as they have The Hive; they automatically remove all Mind stress at the start of a situation and can never get rid of it any other way. They can also Release the Swarm, basically shooting bees at people. For Minor abilities, they can improve their ability to mend and heal (even if they don't have the right tools), cause someone to revert to their base impulses, see through the eyes of their hive, or even use the bees to highjack wild animals. Or have the swarm chew them up and reassemble them in order to pass through small gaps. The body-horror is much more apparent in this class. Their Major abilites include Blessed Toxin - secrete a healing narcotic and deliver it via a sting, Delirium Spike which boosts the use of their swarm as a weapon, Sacred Geometry - when you roll a 6 to inflict or remove stress, add another d6, Unchaos - coalesce probability, reducing the difficulty of actions, and...  The end of a Apiarist's arc can lead to them entombing themselves and a taget in perfect, eternal crystal, dispersing into a cloud of bees which will spread your consciousness across a Landmark, warding it from the Heart, or surrendering to chaos, and manifesting the Heart itself (fatally for the Apiarist, and likely everything around you). Deep Apiarist Class Breakdown Next: The Heretic, Hound and Incarnadine
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Apr 12, 2020 21:47
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Oh, hi, gentle order bees! I liked you in Spire!
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Apr 12, 2020 21:52
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Night10194 posted:Oh, hi, gentle order bees! I liked you in Spire! The Deep Apiarist in Heart takes the one from Spire and cranks it up significantly...
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Apr 12, 2020 22:07
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WITNESS BEE! -Starts exploding Heart Touched creatures-
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Apr 12, 2020 22:21
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Was there an apiarist in Spire?
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Apr 12, 2020 22:34
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CitizenKeen posted:Was there an apiarist in Spire? Yeah, they were one of the add-on things you could take in Black Magic. One of the non-core-classes you could layer on top of a normal class.
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Apr 12, 2020 22:38
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CitizenKeen posted:Was there an apiarist in Spire? I found the one in Black Magic to be a bit underwhelming. This might be a bit of a refinement. The original didn't have the cool zenith abilities and instead your high tier advances let you encase Heart tainted stuff in crystals and disperse stress through the party when you take damage.
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Apr 12, 2020 22:54
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Fivemarks posted:Now I doubly want to make an RPG to do better than Zak Smith, purely so I can have a voice at GenCon to publicly state that Zak Smith is a Rapist, Abuser, and poo poo his pants at GenCon in 2017.
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Apr 12, 2020 23:13
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Ithle01 posted:I found the one in Black Magic to be a bit underwhelming. This might be a bit of a refinement. The original didn't have the cool zenith abilities and instead your high tier advances let you encase Heart tainted stuff in crystals and disperse stress through the party when you take damage. The Heart apiarist does not gently caress around. It's a really good class in terms of mechanics, it's got really great fluff, and it's the grossest thing in the book.
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Apr 13, 2020 00:21
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Swollen Member posted:I realize that Zak S. is a terrible person but if making GBS threads your pants at Gencon is wrong, I don't ever want to be right. Just sayin', IMO, YMMV, etc. So you want to poo poo your pants at Gencon?
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Apr 13, 2020 00:25
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Just Dan Again posted:That was something about old Changeling I could never really get past- if none of the stuff that's happening is "real" in any sense to anyone who isn't a Changeling, the stakes just don't seem quite as high. Like, you can disbelieve the Antediluvians or the Wyrm. There are still tangible evil vampires and werewolves who can do real damage to the things your characters care about. If a Changeling only has Changeling friends then the stakes are plenty high, but it seems like it'd be pretty hard for evil changelings to actually do anything to a PC's mortal friends or family with their magic. In 1E Changeling it really does feel like the bad end is 'these people can't play pretend anymore' and the real threat is getting an office job and joining your kids' PTA. That's been walked back as time goes on, and you've got stuff like your standard group trying to control the apocalypse (in this case Winter), the return of ancient monsters like the Fomorians, whatever weirdness is going on at home in Arcadia, all sorts of stuff. And not it's more about losing your sense of wonder which doesn't hinge on what you do or what you do it with. If you're a CPA who genuinely loves numbers? Perfect. I think somebody along the way working on the anniversary edition realized it was dopey to call technology evil when the thing that inspired so much wonder a whole kith came back to Earth was the moon landing.
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Apr 13, 2020 01:06
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 Chapter 4 is hardly a chapter at all. It covers the initial scenes for the heroes readying themselves for the voyage, and a list of Thylea’s constellations and to which islands they’re attuned. The PCs are presumed to have some time making preparations for their journey, but Kyrah encourages them to set sail quickly. They will not have to sail alone or on a tight budget: various citizens from prior areas in the adventure path approach to give the party farm animals and minor consumable magic items as thanks for their earlier deeds. Queen Vallus presents them with the Antikythera, a magical artifact-compass which can manipulate time and space to ensure a speedy passage between maritime destinations. The compass is attuned to the constellations in the night sky, which in turn represent the various islands off the coast of Thylea. Unfortunately a missing gear was stolen, preventing it from charting course to the more remote areas including the domains of Sydon and Lutheria. Vallus believes that Commander Gaius is responsible, and tells the party that he recently departed for the Order’s headquarters at the Island of Yonder. So how does the Antikythera work? Well it allows a ship to sail to any attuned constellation destination in 3 days, 2 if proper wind-based magic is used (Boreal Harp, summoned air elementals, etc) or 100 gp of livestock sacrifices to Sydon are made. This time-based shortening is not for flavor: the Oath of Peace will come to its 500-year end in 60 days time when the PCs first set sail. Presuming the Uparty visits each of the 17 islands and stays less than a day on each, they’ll have a window of 9 days before the Doom of Thylea begins. This is not counting any 3-day voyages made back to the mainland. Finding recruits is trivial for the PCs. A crew of 50 oarsmen minimum is needed to row the Ultros, but 100 sailors will sign up due to the party’s reputation alone. For named NPCs, the deities Kyrah and Pythor will come along as guidance (albeit Pythor is often too drunk to be useful) along with Versi the Oracle. But some optional followers include the satyr fanboy from the Mossy Temple, Bullbug the Minotaur, and Moxena the Lady of Coins if the PCs resolved their respective role-play interactions in a manner earning their trust. Bioware Trope Alert: Token Evil Party Member: The Ghost of Estor Arkelander will manifest on the ship at night. Should the PCs ask him for advice regarding a dilemma, he’ll invariably suggest options that result in the most fear and bloodshed. Epic Paths: Versi will experience a vision of a lost dragon egg and tell the Vanished One that it can be found on Fire Island. Queen Vallus will approach the Gifted One before they depart, telling them that the ancient fortress of the Dragonlords can be recovered in the Garden of Helios, but it is now under the dominion of a dragon. She will also tell the Lost One that the few remaining skilled gygan artisans can modify the Antikythera to allow a ship to sail to destinations beyond Thylea’s waters. Estor Arkelander will tell the Lost One that he buried the treasure of the Dragonlords in the Nether Sea,* sealed in a prison housing the greatest threats and weapons of the gods. He offers to show them the way, but only if the Lost One swears a vow to allow him first pick of the treasure. *Thylea’s Hades equivalent.  So an interesting thing I noticed about this map. The various numbered locations are split between two chapters, but said chapter titles are misleading. Quite a few locations in Chapter 5, the Cerulean Gulf, are south of the Forgotten Sea such as the Island of Themis. Furthermore, the islands which an Antikythera with its missing gear restored are the geographical outliers (11-17) in Chapter 6, the Forgotten Sea. This confused me a bit, but mapwise it makes sense as the farther options need the missing gear. Generic Video Game Trope Alert: Aquatic Border Patrol: If you’re wondering what’s preventing the PCs from setting sail early...well, the Ultros is a magically-reinforced ship that even Sydon cannot sink. Any other ship the PCs set sail on would be destroyed by his relentless torrential weather.  There are 10 islands open initially to the PCs to visit as they will. Sometime after visiting a few, Sydon and Lutheria will menace the party yet again. The Lord of Storms will summon a hellish hurricane that will sink the ship unless the PCs use any clever combination of magic and skill checks at their perusal to get out.* All the while the Titan will issue his booming voice down to the Ultros, speaking of how he’ll kill all who resist him in the end. As for Lutheria, she will send the party a nightmare of their ship’s crew cannibalizing each other. PCs who fail a Wisdom saving throw will enter a violent rage and attack anyone they see for 10 rounds. Although the text mentions that it’s a great opportunity for PCs to fight each other “without guilt or hard feelings,” the relative power level of PCs in comparison to the average crewmen, and the amount of mayhem that can be inflicted in 10 combat rounds, likely means that several people are gonna die. *or make a hefty sacrifice to him of 500 gp worth of livestock. Island of the Golden Heart: This bountiful island is blessed with magically-fertile life. A massive tree in the center is the only place where mortals can speak with Thylea: PCs she deems worthy she can answer questions with the strength of a divination spell, and anyone stupid enough to attack the tree will get squashed by a summoned Kentimane who is a CR 29 legendary foe. PCs can hunt golden-manned animals such as a lion and ram whose fleece and fur can be valuable crafting components at the Mithral Forge. The Ram is intelligent and will let the PCs shear it if they ask nicely. Apples and olives harvested can mimic minor potions, and a pegasus can join the party’s cause as an allied mount should a good-aligned rider who has never committed an evil deed in their life respectfully approach. Which depending on how broad we’re defining ‘evil,’ may make said pegasus incredibly easy or incredibly difficult to recruit. Island of the Chimera: This island is home to a very strong chimera (max HP per Hit Dice) who’s been preying on Thylea’s shipping trade for decades. There’s a thousand gold bounty on whoever can show proof of its death, and its lair is full of stolen treasures. Island of the Fates: A trio of hags known as the Fates live here, weaving tapestries that foretell the destinies of all. Various monsters guard their lair, and they’re responsible for finding and giving metallic dragon eggs over to Sydon to brainwash and corrupt (and have a copper dragon egg in their possession). The hags can offer their magical services to the PCs, but in exchange they demand some utterly evil actions: kill the Oracle Versi, kidnap a baby to bring to them to turn into a hag, and/or kidnap a nymph for them to torture and eat. There’s also a tunnel leading into a huge pit overlooking the Nether Sea. Said Sea is the dominion of Lutheria, and if you’re wondering if PCs with flight (siren, pegasus, etc) can use this to circumvent a good portion of the AP...well they can, but will likely be very underleveled for dealing with the horrors in the depths. Epic Paths: The Fates can tell the destinies of the Doomed One, the Haunted One, and the Dragonslayer. For the Doomed and Haunted Ones they explain the divine origin of their respective misfortunes. Their loom can also be used to craft one of the wish list magic items for the Doomed One, but the party must bargain with or kill the Fates in order to use it. For the Haunted One they will explain how breaking Lutheria’s crystal scythe shall free their family’s souls. For the Dragonslayer, they will tell them to seek the Sun God’s wisdom in the Garden of Helios but leave out the fact that said sun god is the dragon that brought misfortune upon them. They may be near-omniscient, but they’re still evil. Island of the Exiles: This is a prison colony the Mytrosian government sends its most dangerous and irredeemable criminals. The island is barren save for a few shrubs, preventing any ships from being built, and ships from Mytros occasionally sail here to deliver food rations. The islands’ 25 inhabitants are overwhelmingly evil and guilty of some rather major crimes, but one of the women is actually Acastus’ mother who was exiled here by her son for political purposes. Recently one of the inhabitants was murdered, and the exiles will call upon the PCs as a neutral party to find the culprit. Should they do so, they will be given a rare white ox that makes for 5 voyages’ worth of sacrifices for sailing, and can take on the exiles as crew members to replace any fallen sailors. Scorpion Island: A group of centaurs living on this island suffer a peculiar curse: those who cannot find a rider to bond with when they come of age turn into giant scorpions. As a result, the tribes here are mostly made up of children and adolescents who spend most of their days partying and avoiding their unfortunate transformed companions. Aresian warrior-monks use the island as a training ground, and both they and the centaurs can tell the PCs about the Lotus Witch: a sphinx who cursed the centaurs to be such and now lives in a magical tower. Said tower is filled with babies and toddlers, originally adults cursed to be eternally youthful by the sphinx to use as slaves in harvesting fields of lotus flowers. PCs must either kill the Lotus Witch or beat her in a game of riddles in order to undo her curses. PCs who lose against her in a fight will become children, and Pythor or one of the Five Gods will negotiate their release unless the GM wants to end the campaign then and there. Whether by bonding with them or ending their curse, each PC can potentially gain a loyal centaur mount to ride into battle. Epic Paths: the Lotus Witch will tell the Cursed One that the magic of their misfortune is on Typhon Island. They must dive into the volcano there in order to end it, but need an appropriate wish list magic item in order to survive the fall. The Witch possesses said item, but will only relinquish it if they answer her riddles (or kill her).  Indigo Island: This forested isle is home to various tribes of barbarians who are the best seabound navigators in all of Thylea, but regard their talents as sacred and not to be taught to outsiders. PCs who visit can prove their mettle in mock combat with some warriors and be invited to a feast. But an evil copper dragon raised by and loyal to Sydon will disrupt the festivities. PCs who hunt down and kill the dragon can earn the gratitude of the tribes, and loot said dragon’s treasure hoard if found. Titan’s Folly: In times when the Titans numbered a respectable pantheon, the most industrious of their number created the myrmekes. This antlike race was capable of learning even complicated concepts and magic in an astoundingly short amount of time. They used their talents to nearly take over the world, and it took the efforts of Kentimane to seal them away in a tiny island. The islands’ true nature has long been forgotten even by the gods, but is known to hold something dangerous. Titan’s Folly is covered by a transparent dome of magical force, and the native races among the Ultros’ crew will warn the PCs to stay away and forget all memory of the place. However, the PCs will gain strong dreamlike visions of some sought-after magic item being beyond the barrier, the result of the myrmekes’ telepathy. PCs who manage to magically bypass the dome will find an island of perfectly-sculpted hills home to the myrmekes, who are more curious and hospitable than suspicious. They will ask the PCs all manner of questions about the outside world. So, what makes myrmekes so dangerous? Well, as part of their monster description they are fast learners: just about any spell, proficiency, or physically-oriented class feature can be learned by them by merely observing its use in action for 1 round. They can then telepathically share this learned knowledge with others of their kind. The myrmekes will monitor how the PCs get back to the Ultros, and thus replicate the means to escape themselves. For some unfathomable reason they’ll decide that conquering the world by killing off all other races is the only reasonable course of action, and in a manner of weeks will begin construction of Bronze Age-level technology and fleets of trireme ships. Said advanced myrmekes can be encountered as a warship in a future encounter, but the book says that their existential threat is beyond the scope of the campaign… ...even though the adventure path easily covers over one in-game year, which is enough for the myrmekes to exponentially grow and conquer a lot of territory. Not having material on how Thylea will change should they be released is a missed opportunity. Particularly since another colony can be encountered as prisoners in Sydon’s tower-fortress of Praxys. Fire Island: This is a medium-sized dungeon crawl, with a lizardfolk tribe of Sydon loyalists as the main antagonist. The PCs can gain the aid of lesser tribes, including one led by a rebel lizard queen whose people originally worshiped the god in the volcano. Said volcano god is actually the sole surviving sister of Sydon and Lutheria who was trapped beneath the earth by them. The Lord of Storms has a vested interest in ensuring that the lizardfolk do not end up finding a way to free her, thus sponsoring a regime change loyal to him. The Sydon loyalists have come upon a pair of brass dragon eggs, one of which they hatched and raised and another still unhatched (and which is the one referenced in the Vanished One’s Epic Path). There’s also a cyclops blacksmith by the name of Steros who crafts magic items for them, but can come to the PCs’ aid (and build stuff for them too) if they promise to find his father who is very likely prisoner on the Island of Themis. Steros is a Jancan, a subrace of cyclops gifted with enhanced intelligence and skill at the forge. Although he does want to free his father from the Amazons, he also secretly hopes to betray the party and offer them to Sydon to gain the gods’ respect. The book says to role-play him like an incompetent cartoon villain, twirling his mustache and announcing his evil plans within earshot of the PCs when he thinks nobody’s listening. This guy...is not gonna last long in most gaming groups.  Island of Yonder: The headquarters of the Order of Sydon took advantage of this islands’ natural features for defensive purposes. The soldiers converted the ruins of a gygan library into a fortress and living space, and an inland bay leading to a natural pass in a ring of mountains is the only land-based route to it that doesn’t involve a treacherous climb. Commander Gaius and his silver dragon mount are here by the time the PCs arrive, and he’s in charge of a small army of human soldiers, spellcasters, gygans, harpies, a few guardian golems, and gorgons* who serve as mounts. It goes without saying that they’re hostile to visiting PCs, meaning that either stealth or combat is necessary to retrieve the Antikythera’s missing gear and any other treasures within. *the metal bull kind, not the medusa kind. Unlike the inhabitants of previous dungeons, the Order are made up of hardened soldiers and act the part. The fey in the Mossy Temple were drunk and overconfident, the Mithral Mines’ troglodytes left portions of the dungeon untouched due to the presence of other monsters, and Moxena’s minions in the Colossus were guardians of a linear ascent. Every room has a list of differences depending on whether the complex is at rest or on alert, and if the PCs manage to retreat or escape then Gaius will attack their ship with his dragon mount and attempt to kill everyone onboard in order to deny the party a naval retreat. Beyond the typical gold and magic items, other treasures here are of a more intangible nature. The ruins’ library contains much in the way of forgotten lore, and between that and Gaius’ personal notes can compile information on the dragons who disappeared during the First War. Several theories that they transformed into something else in order to hide. There’s also information regarding much of Thylea’s history beyond public knowledge, which is referenced in an Appendix of its own that I’ll cover later. In order to retrieve the Antikythera’s missing gear,* the party must deal with its current keeper: Chondrus, the high priest of Lutheria. He’s a wizard of no small skill specializing in AoE damaging spells and some defensive ones like Wall of Force and Stoneskin. He’ll try to bargain for his life if it seems he won’t win, promising to help guide them to his goddess’ realm in the Nether Sea. He will turn on them at the next convenient opportunity. Chondrus has a magical bronze bowl which allows for two-way scrying communication with a yugoloth** in the Nether Sea, who is oddly talkative to any PCs with questions. *and the book calls out that the DM should ensure the PCs don’t miss it. **funnily enough these monsters are not OGL. As to why WotC hasn’t slapped a Cease & Desist on Arcanum Studios, well…they’re now actually developing video games for them! Epic Paths: Chondrus has one of the Dragonslayer’s wish list magic items. He will give it up voluntarily if the PCs offer to spare him, but as usual they can make the smart choice and kill him for it instead. As the Antikythera’s location is known island-wise to the party before they set sail, it’s quite possible that many gaming groups may heed Queen Vallus’ advice and head to Yonder ASAP. While they’ll likely visit other islands to fulfill their Epic Paths, the 60 day countdown and 3 day interim periods may encourage parties to skip over much of the seabound islands. But they’ll likely be underleveled if they do this too much, which the experience and treasure for island exploration is meant to discourage. But this works more from a metagame perspective, as unless the party heard about a particular island’s features elsewhere they very well may pass it up if they don’t know the risk/reward factor.  Island of Themis: The Island of the Amazons is the largest landmass off Thylea’s mainland. Its position is subtropical and includes animals unseen elsewhere in the region such as giraffes, rhinos, and hyenas. Most of Themis’ land is open plains, and the Amazon tribes travel across it in semi-nomadic bands fighting each other in ritual combat to determine land rights and in settling disputes. Every Amazon is trained in the arts of war from an early age alongside another warrior who becomes their ‘lifemate.’ They’re made up of various races both settler and native, and their martial prowess is famous throughout the rest of Thylea. If Moxena is part of the crew she will highly encourage the PCs to take her during their foray. Same for Steros, who wishes to find his imprisoned father. Thirteen years ago the Amazonian government underwent a violent coup as Queen Thesilea seized the throne in the name of Lutheria. She and her two sisters wear magical platinum helmets which disguise their true natures as medusae, and the next most legitimate heirs to the throne have been imprisoned in their secret dungeon, or exiled in the case of Moxena. PCs have the chance to sense things are amiss via some encounters on the island, including a roving band of maenads, goatlings, and pervy men. They’re drinking, gambling, and having sex in a wild party, loudly announcing that the island is part of Lutheria’s domain now. Bands of Amazon warriors encountered separately will be hostile unless the party is all-female, believing them spies. Otherwise they’re escorted to have an audience with their queen Men are permitted on the island only under strict supervision and in small numbers for the purposes of procreation and then sent their way, although in some cases male prisoners of war from elsewhere are kept as sex slaves. Queen Thesilea/the writers decided that they could be EVEN EDGIER and began construction of an underwater temple where young boys are raised and brainwashed to view themselves as sacred sons of Lutheria to be used as eventual breeding stock. But on their eighteenth birthday they’re killed via petrification and serve as decorative statues. Irregardless of the terrible nature of sexual slavery, having a strict cut-off point of 18 makes it seem less like they’re being productive in keeping up their numbers and more that Queen Thesilea has a thing for underage boys.  The Queen’s lair is in a sacred temple which also serves as Themis’ only prison. It is a multi-level dungeon crawl descent beneath the surface, guarded only by the Queen’s most trusted hand-picked Amazons so others encountered on the island cannot tell the party its specifics. The complex has a mixture of normal Amazon warriors, their war-trained basilisk and stimfay companions, and goatlings as major opposition. Places of interest here include a set of natural tunnels guarded by a Hydra, who ate the sword Titansbane after Queen Thesilea tossed it out; the cyclops prisoner Bront, who can tell the PCs the current location of said sword and will be eager to return to Fire Island because the lizardfolk there treated him better; and a magically soundless prison cell containing Darien, the legitimate heir to the Amazon throne. She was kept alive for 13 years as part of an oath by the Queen not to harm the children of the losing side, and is eager to help the PCs in taking revenge against the usurpers. There’s two squicky encounters where the PCs can walk in on Amazons and goatlings having sex with their brainwashed male slaves, including one where one of the medusa rulers seems too preoccupied to attend to a crying baby in a cradle in the same room...which is actually a goatling in disguise, thank God. It is possible that the PCs can determine who next sits on the throne after killing the Queen. Darien, an Amazon PC, and Moxena are the likeliest candidates, although Moxena will do everything she can to undermine Darien if she’s chosen. If the PCs treated Moxena poorly overall, then she’ll order the Amazons to slay the party if she becomes queen. Epic Paths: Queen Thesilea carries the Haunted One’s other wish list magic item containing their family’s memories. The item will whisper that the Fates know of how to free the rest of their kin...which may be superfluous if the party dealt with the Fates before coming to Themis. Thoughts So Far: I love the concept of an island-hopping sandbox with enough adventure hooks to encourage some exploration between them. Only a few qualify as true adventures/dungeon crawls, with most of them being one to three encounters at most. But I feel that they’re overall the right length so as to prevent the island-crawl from feeling too long. I do feel that the shorter island encounters may produce unbalanced results in favor of long rest-focused classes, given that by the time you complete a shorter island like Golden Heart or Chimera you’ll have 2-3 days (and one sea-based encounter) before stepping foot on to the next island. There are a few weak points, namely what happens if the PCs screw up big time and lose either the Ultros proper (Sydon sinks it) or their crew numbers get too low (Gaius and his dragon killing the crew). Given that it’s possible at least one PC may have a Divine Boon to rescue them from certain death, the adventure path has no suggestions on how to resume back on trail for lone survivor PCs. There’s also the fact that the PCs can get an awful lot of DMPC allies fighting on their side which may unbalance encounters. The pegasus mount is a cool concept, but the centaur mounts may potentially double the party number. The Island of Themis is one that requires the most work: there’s a fair chance that the party will have anywhere from 3 to 7 DMPC allies fighting alongside them for the dungeon crawl. The creepy sex stuff, combined with the possibility of an all-women party bypassing much of the dungeon (the other Amazons revolt and converge on the temple-prison once the medusae are killed) are other things that will have to be rekindled for most gaming groups. Join us next time as we move on to Thylea’s far reaches in Chapter 6: the Forgotten Sea! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Apr 13, 2020 |
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Apr 13, 2020 05:18
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