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The Lone Badger posted:One thing I like about LotW's improvised weapons is the note that you should pretty much always be able to grab one from a given set of surroundings. You should never be locked out of your preferred external style because you don't have a weapon. Yeah, LotW is a very generous game to players overall. As we'll see when we get into the Loresheets, it really tries very hard to never arbitrarily restrict your character concept for "versimilitude." Like, for pretty much every secret kung fu technique that says something like "this kung fu is only taught to the highest-ranking members of the Yun Clan," it immediately follows that up with "if you're not a high-ranking member of the Yun Clan, how did you learn this kung fu?" rather than just saying "this Kung Fu has a prerequisite of Status 15+ with the Yun Clan" or whatever. Or another example: Zereth posted:If you have a say, Massive, Flexible weapon, does your current style need to be proficient in both tags, or just one? As long as at least one of your weapon tags matches at least one of your style's tags, you're golden.
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Apr 7, 2021 08:15
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JcDent posted:
There's a few more, but they're given as one off things to powerful NPCs pretty much exclusively.
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Apr 7, 2021 08:33
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Zereth posted:If you have a say, Massive, Flexible weapon, does your current style need to be proficient in both tags, or just one? Just one.
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Apr 7, 2021 10:37
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JcDent posted:
To be fair not even computer games keep track of magazines as separate from weapons that often, so tieing mag upgrades to the weapon is a good compromise for bookkeeping reasons. You could probably make a game were keeping track of individual mags would be interesting, but I feel like this isn't that game, even if we pretend it's good and well thought out. Speaking off, since the devs complained about no one buying their game since they gave it away for free, how did that work out for Eclipse Phase? Didn't they have an official torrent or something of their core books?
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Apr 7, 2021 10:38
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 Part Six: Power in Firebending Comes From the Breath Where external kung fu styles are pretty open, consisting of the basic style package and a few upgrade techniques you can buy as the spirit moves you, internal styles have a much more rigid structure. Each internal style consists of 5 levels worth of techniques: one level one technique, four level 2, three level 3, and so on. Technique levels are not the same thing as characters' Rank--if you're willing to invest the Destiny, you can buy all 5 levels right from character creation. There are two restrictions, though: You can't learn a higher level technique until you have one technique of each lower level, and you can only learn one technique of each level. In effect, while every internal style starts and ends in the same places, the specific route you take through the middle levels is, in effect, its own unique sub-style. These sub-styles often have their own names and (naturally) fierce rivalries with other variants. That said, most of the major Wulin sects have at least one internal style that they have completely mastered: mechanically, that means they have a technique you can spend Destiny on that lets you learn every technique of a particular internal style, if you're so inclined. A technique's level is also its cost, both to learn (in Destiny) and to use (in Chi). As a reminder, all Destiny spent on internal kung fu also counts for Cultivation, so you're also buying increases to your Chi pool(s) when you learn these techniques. You can, however, only use any given technique once per round, and while bonuses from internal kung fu stack with bonuses from external kung fu and weapons, they do not stack with other bonuses from internal kung fu. So you can't use the same "+5 to Strike" technique five times to get a +25 bonus, nor can you use a +5 Strike technique and a different +20 Strike technique to get to that +25. The sole exception to this rule, as you might remember from a couple of updates back, is that if you make a secondary attack, you may re-activate any techniques that you used on the primary attack. Techniques usually only last for a single roll, but some have longer durations or can be extended by paying more Chi (less than it would cost to re-activate the technique from scratch, though). So, with the basics out of the way, let's talk about the styles themselves. Boundless Prosperity Manual is our Wood style, and it's focused on teaching proper breathing, exercise, and esoteric internal alchemy to promote long life, good health, and ultimately transcendence of mortal form. Unsurprisingly, its techniques are mostly about mitigating injuries and other medical Conditions, recovering from Marvel effects, and the like. Its ultimate technique lets you briefly emulate the divine god-body you will exist in after death, temporarily giving you an extra die in your Lake for the entire round. Fire Sutra is focused, unsurprisingly, primarily on Burn energy attacks, though it also has some techniques that emulate fire's speed and mobility, with stuff like Dodge bonuses and bonuses to Cover Ground if you're moving upward. It also gets bonuses to resist both Burn and Freeze attacks as options. Its ultimate technique is a supremely powerful Burn attack, with a +20 Strike bonus, +15 Damage, and any Chi Aura dice used to resist it costing double. When you factor in that energy attacks ignore armor and toughness, that's pretty nasty. Oh, and it's our Fire style, I don't know if you picked up on that. My one criticism with Fire Sutra (and this holds for all the energy attack-focused styles) is that it maybe has a few too many Burn attack techniques--there's one per level with escalating bonuses, and while of course you don't have to buy all of them, and theoretically if you did and had enough matched sets on your roll you could use multiple Burn attacks on your turn, it's still almost 50% of the style's design space taken up by "the same thing, but with a bigger bonus." It's just a little underwhelming--especially since there are also multiple techniques that just give you an escalating bonus to resist Burn attacks. Fox-Spirit Song is the first non-elemental style presented, and as you might guess from the name it's all about being a Tricky rear end in a top hat Fox(TM). Its abilities are kind of a grab bag, including bonuses to Disrupt and Disorient (and to resist the same--you can't outfox the fox), dodge Area Attacks that can exclude targets, and even reverse the order of attack and defense rolls, so your target rolls to defend before you roll to attack. Its ultimate technique lets you drain a die frm your opponent's Lake for the rest of the fight--they can roll to recover it, but unfortunately the book doesn't clarify whether this lost die counts as a "penalty from internal kung fu" and thus whether you can use it multiple times on the same target. Heaven's Lightning is our Earth style, and if that seems counterintuitive, well, it's the interaction between diametric opposites--Heaven and Earth, yin and yang--that creates lightning. Much like Fire Sutra it focuses on energy attacks, this time Shock attacks, but also on Disorient and Knockback effects. It even has techniques that channel your thunderous power directly back into your external attacks--including one that lets you transfer the bonus you'd normally apply to a Shock secondary attack directly into one of your main combat stats. Its ultimate technique is, again, a really powerful Shock attack that also gives the target a -10 penalty to Chi Aura rolls against further Shocks for the rest of the fight. Ice Sutra is the Water style, and... yep, lots of Freeze energy attacks. It also has some techniques to drain your opponent's Toughness or increase your own, debuff people with freezing cold, and maybe its most interesting technique, downgrade any Passion or Inspiration Conditions you have by one step (only for purposes of their effects, though, it doesn't speed or ease recovery from them) as you become cold in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Ice puns are not required, but are preferred. Its ultimate technique yet again is a big Freeze attack, which also shuts down the target's Chi regeneration completely for the round. Finally we move away from our big energy attack-focused styles with Iron Body Skill, probably the hardest kung fu there is and our example of a Metal style. It's pretty straightforward, mostly bonuses to the "hard" combat stats like Strike, Block, Damage, and Toughness, with some ability to ignore penalties and improve your Chi Aura. It even gets a bonus to Knockback and Cover Ground as you bowl people out of the way and Kool-Aid Man your way through walls. Its ultimate technique is a straight +25 to Damage, and if you inflict an injury Condition, its Recovery difficulty goes up by 10 and it has a Duration (i.e. number of successful Recovery rolls required) of 5. Jade Spirit Sword is a non-elemental style that's all about the sword (duh.) It's also very heavily tied to the Heaven Sword Alliance Sect, who we'll hear more about in the Loresheets chapter. It opens with a technique that lets you treat your sword as any one other kind of weapon in addition to Sword (except Paired, Ranged, or Unarmed, for some reason, but I'd drop that restriction because what's cooler than making a second sword out of pure Chi?). It gives some basic combat stat bonuses throughout, but most of its techniques give you additional benefits if you happen to have a Passion or Influence Hyperactivity, because this style is all about your sword and your heart working as one. It's ultimate technique lets you gain those benefits even if you don't have a Condition and lets you use the first level and one second-level technique you know once per round. Nine Sun Birds is a speed-focused style that emulates the sun itself: so fast it crosses the whole world in a single day, never tiring, and concealing its effortless superiority behind a façade of slowness--clearly the greatest kung fu there is! It gets a lot of speed-based techniques, from straight-up bonuses to secondary and area attack options. It also gets a technique that says you get to roll Initiative after everyone else so you can "make your choices based upon their results and planned Waves" which... I kind of assumed was how initiative was supposed to work? That is, I assumed initiative was a more or less simultaneous thing where everybody got to settle on actions collectively, but I guess not? The initiative roll rules say absolutely nothing about this--I guess the intent is everybody rolls, decides what to use their sets on, then reveals those things simultaneously? IDK, it's confusing like many things in this game, and I definitely get the impression it was only playtested by people who either made the system or already had a lot of experience with Weapons of the Gods. Anyways, this style's ultimate technique is a combo of a +25 Strike bonus and a secondary Burn attack with +10. Removing Concepts is a very esoteric style that relies on seeing past the illusion of this world to the truth of reality, and acting in concert with its cycles to produce effortless victory. It has techniques to let you swap your external style bonuses for your Awareness or Wu Wei skill, plus a lot of ways to ignore penalties and act "effortlessly:" rerolls, secondary attacks, even a technique that lets you base a Minor Action off of a single die. Its ultimate technique lets you use a set on your initiative roll for an Awareness check and then use that result in place of a Rippling roll later in the round. You don't get to actually make the Rippling roll to compare the results, though, you just have to gamble that it would have been worse. Overall, this is a style that's low-key better for higher-Rank characters--as a starting PC, its unlikely your skill bonuses are going to significantly outstrip your external style bonus (unless the Sage lets you take a "Removing Concepts kung fu" specialty, which would push your maximum Skill bonus up to +15), but a Rank 1 character caps out at +25 for Skills, whereas external kung fu bonuses rarely get above +15, or +20 in specific circumstances. I actually think that's a really nice, subtle piece of design (and there are enough techniques that do other stuff that you probably won't feel cheated if you do pick it up at lower Rank), encouraging the more esoteric masters to use the more esoteric style. Thousand Venoms is our reference for Corrupt kung fu, because did you really think this game was going to not let us create the Five Deadly Venoms? Structurally it's a lot like Fire or Ice Sutra or Heaven's Lightning--lots of Poison energy attacks and resistance to same. It also has techniques to make Poison harder to resist or recover from, make Poison Area Attacks, and even "infect" a target's Chi points, forcing them to spend double Chi. Its ultimate technique is a really powerful Poison attack that also incorporates a classic trope of wuxia movies: the poison you have to remain calm and slow-moving and keep your heartbeat steady or it gets worse! (Well, in this case it just gets harder to recover from, not actually worse.) Finally, Unstained Lotus Mastery isn't actually a Corrupt style, but given that its chief practitioners are one of the Four Banes of the Wulin, it's pretty sus. It's all about horrifically killing people without making a bloody mess by channeling destructive Chi directly into their bones and organs. It's also the only style with a completely unique subsystem to it: Its basic technique inflicts "petals" on your opponent with successful hits, which represent hairline fractures, tiny disruptions to their organs, and the like. The later techniques let you spend those petals on various effects, from the straightforward "add more dice to a Rippling roll" to creating Disrupt and Disorient effects. It also gets some general upgrades to Damage and Toughness, and an ability to attack at range. Its ultimate technique just lets you inflict three petals on a hit, and spend more Chi to boost that number. Overall, it's a neat concept for a style, but I feel like you could get the same effect without the "petal" mechanic, since Ripples already fill a similar purpose. It's also the only internal style that's completely useless if you only know the first level technique--without those higher-level techniques to manipulate them, petals don't actually do anything. After the styles comes a collection of "Formless Techniques." These are your obligatory "everybody should probably be able to learn these and/or they're really cool but don't particularly fit into any specific style" abilities. They have a level, but don't count as part of any style so you don't have to learn prerequisites for them. In addition to a couple tiers of generic bonuses to each individual combat stat, you've got fun options like "summon your weapon telekinetically like a goddamn Jedi," "use your hair (or beard, or even eyebrows) as a Flexible weapon," and "move to places that can't actually support your weight." I particularly like Deadly Music, which lets you use a musical instrument as a weapon with increasingly-better stats the better you roll on a Perform check. We also get the actual mechanics for Sword Bastard's Corrupted version of Devil-Deflecting Style from the chapter's opening fiction, and it's... not that great? It's a level 5 Corrupt Formless style with the excellent name of Devil-Saint Apotheosis Style (seriously, this game is real good at naming stuff), but what it actually does is simply prevent both you and your opponent from using Joss or the River on a single exchange (i.e. your attack and their defense), and if your opponent is using the Warrior's Secret Arts to give himself a Condition, you automatically reduce its level by one. Honestly, pretty underwhelming for what's supposed to be such an incredible technique that it's allowed the Sword Bastard to slaughter dozens of heroes. Next Time: KUNG FU CONFUSION! GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 12:06
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Hel posted:To be fair not even computer games keep track of magazines as separate from weapons that often, so tieing mag upgrades to the weapon is a good compromise for bookkeeping reasons. You could probably make a game were keeping track of individual mags would be interesting, but I feel like this isn't that game, even if we pretend it's good and well thought out. 2e was not made freely available on Rob Boyle's site the way 1e was. I don't have the quote on hand to verify it, but I recall hearing dev commentary about online RPG culture shifting to where the benefits of free distribution weren't really a thing any more. The license still allows it, Boyle just doesn't host it himself.
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Apr 7, 2021 13:47
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Read through Night's Hunter: The Recokoning Review, and it got me thinking about Exalted vs World of Darkness. Are "fan" games allowed to be reviewed here?
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Apr 7, 2021 19:41
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NutritiousSnack posted:Read through Night's Hunter: The Recokoning Review, and it got me thinking about Exalted vs World of Darkness. Are "fan" games allowed to be reviewed here? Yeah, certainly, though of course we should refrain from dumping on some ten-year-old's D&D reskin or whatever. EX vs WoD would be fine.
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Apr 7, 2021 19:50
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I know someone did Genius, and I think Princess and Leviathan as well got partial writeups.
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Apr 7, 2021 19:58
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Hipster Occultist posted:poo poo like this is a major problem with this so-called “novelist style” that composes these adventures. The adventure assumes the PCs make the rolls because the linear narrative demands it, so they don’t provide rules or guidance for what might happen if they fail these rolls. What happens is that you're still playing this poo poo adventure. This doesn't have to be CoDMW limo intro, a city going to hell has ample opportunities for encounters, like giving the players chances to save people who will be useful/thankful later, looting mcguffins, and so on. Heck, even the 200 Scrapper mob (God, I hate these exact, perfectly rounded numbers) presents options, as urban terrain saps many of the benefits a massed formation might have, and just by diverting the attention of a group of soldiers could pay off later. gently caress this game. It's like Rifts: beautiful art, crazy setting, useless minutiae in lore, terrible factions, awful rules, unplayable adventures. We just need for it to have 50 more books.
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Apr 7, 2021 20:03
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JesterOfAmerica posted:Do you have opinions on the Half-Burned Manual or the LotW 1.5 proposed fixes? They came out with a 1.5.1 responding to people's responses to 1.5, FYI. Someday, perhaps, I'll actually try running the drat thing again.
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Apr 7, 2021 20:10
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LeSquide posted:They came out with a 1.5.1 responding to people's responses to 1.5, FYI. Someday, perhaps, I'll actually try running the drat thing again. With GimpInBlack's permission, I'd love to hear about your thoughts on both.
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Apr 7, 2021 20:12
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I'm pretty sure the LotW fanfix is on 1.5.2. Half-Burnt Manual was a one-off though, I believe.
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Apr 7, 2021 20:17
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That Old Tree posted:I'm pretty sure the LotW fanfix is on 1.5.2. well I'll be jabberjacked edit: this .pdf is not searchable and it is driving me insane LaSquida fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 20:36
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Leraika posted:With GimpInBlack's permission, I'd love to hear about your thoughts on both. Fine by me, some thoughts from someone who's run the game are more than welcome.
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Apr 7, 2021 21:10
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GimpInBlack posted:My one criticism with Fire Sutra (and this holds for all the energy attack-focused styles) is that it maybe has a few too many Burn attack techniques--there's one per level with escalating bonuses, and while of course you don't have to buy all of them, and theoretically if you did and had enough matched sets on your roll you could use multiple Burn attacks on your turn, it's still almost 50% of the style's design space taken up by "the same thing, but with a bigger bonus." It's just a little underwhelming--especially since there are also multiple techniques that just give you an escalating bonus to resist Burn attacks. This makes sense when you remember you can only get on Technique per level, so having the option for a Burn (or Freeze, or whatever) at every level means you're not giving it up forever because something else at that level caught your eye. It feels a bit weird when you're part of a group that lets you buy all of it, though.
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Apr 7, 2021 21:16
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Tsilkani posted:This makes sense when you remember you can only get on Technique per level, so having the option for a Burn (or Freeze, or whatever) at every level means you're not giving it up forever because something else at that level caught your eye. It feels a bit weird when you're part of a group that lets you buy all of it, though. All these styles have a basic energy attack as their 1st level technique, though, so you're never going to give up the energy attack forever. Granted, that 1st-level technique is kind of piddly with its +5 bonus, but you could solve that problem by, say, having upgrade options on the level 1 technique (e.g. "3 Destiny: Your Burn attack's Strike bonus increases to +15").
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Apr 7, 2021 21:26
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The Killing Game, Day 2 It is now 5am as the PCs stumble into the Resistance camp. When we last left off with our PCs, they were clinging to the wreckage of the Tugboat and it was 11pm. This brings me to another problem that I have with how this adventure is structured. It is meant to be this to be a 72 hour marathon of chaos, with little opportunity for rest as you push the PCs to their limits. While the adventure does provide rough updates as to when certain events start, iit leaves out a couple of very important things that make running this marathon a lot harder than it needs to be. They consistently fail to tell the GM how long a scene should last, and how long it takes the PCs to get from place to place. For example, does it take 5-6 hours for the PCs to walk to the Resistance camp, or do they have time to take an hour-long (or more) rest in there somewhere? This seems like very important information I’d want to know as a GM of this adventure, but like many other things, they couldn’t be bothered to have put it in. Anyways, most of the palace has been looted and sacked by now, with only the artifact room kept safe via its Bygone security door. Nephraim has been taken prisoner, and the Iron Brothers are trying to torture the secret of Marduk Oil out of him. The camp itself is pretty chaotic. Medics are running around treating the wounded, people stream in and out tents carrying supplies, etc. As the PCs grab something to eat, they witness General Zoe and Mayor Vericon arguing. Vericon is pissed that Zoe didn’t unite with Hamza, while Zoe is proclaiming that she is going to take back the city for the Resistance. poo poo, she might as well be saying “France is for the French only!” She’s not explicitly anti-Hamza, but does see the opportunity to take power for herself here. Anyways, before anything is resolved an Iron Brother/old-rear end crippled man who can barely speak and farts a lot (not a joke) shows up. He says Nestor (Iron Brother leader) wants the Resistance to essentially swear fealty and kill Hamza for them, and before he can say that if they do this nobody will be hurt, Zoe pulls out a pistol and caps him. I guess they had to end that scene quick, before some crazy like the PCs getting involved happened. There’s a bit more stuff about rumours swirling around, the PCs can make rolls to make sense of some things, but if they’ve been playing through the adventure normally they already know this is a well-equipped, well-planned, and well-supported rebellion enacted in concert with the Judges and the Chroniclers, so I fail to see the point of all this. As far as the situation on the ground goes, the city only has a few days of rations left before poo poo really gets bad. The Resistance itself can’t retake Toulon without more men, but it would sure like to. With Hamza gone, Zoe would become a Kingmaker. Speaking of Hamza, his ship the Unya sits a couple km off shore. The Iron Brothers don’t have a boat that could assault it, so it just sits there, likely waiting for reinforcements. Aside fro that, the Iron Brothers control most of the important parts of the city. It is now 8am The PCs catch a small break, the looted scrapper radio crackles as a couple of dumb Scrappers literally give out thier password to their encoded channels over an unsecured channel. With a fairly easy engineering or artifact lore roll they can use this code to listen in on a wide variety of rebel Scrapper channels.  As soon Tweedledum and Tweedledee finish giving out their password over an open channel, your radio gets hit with a wave interference. If you make an INT+Engineering (2) roll, you can start seeking out the source of said interference. This leads you into the Arms Distilleries (The gun market in Terres Putain), and after 5 minutes the PCs realize that they’ve been walking in circles. How will they ever find the source of the interference this way?! Luckily for them, the book tells us that the PCs know what to do. They climb up a rickety wooden staircase, jump across a wooden truss, and sprint across several rooftops until they reach a second emitted leaning against a metal antenna. Whew, that was a close one. Our PCs almost had to make a decision there. It is now 9am. The rooftops in this area are coated in soot, and with a INS+Survival (2) roll that character can tell that they’re both fresh, and someone knelt down right next to the Antenna. The book then tells us that the characters then scurry to the edge of the building and look down, where they see Factor disappear (through a fake detachable wall) into a warehouse below them. He has not seen them, so now they can take revenge on this guy who shot at them once and then threw a weird grenade. That’s actually a pretty long list of people by now, and while most PCs would still be down for merking this fool, I doubt it’s going to feel too much like an epic showdown. Anyways, if they want to sneak up on him all stealth rolls are at -2D because it’s so quiet. If you succeed, you get to hear Factor calling for someone named Alabaster. His mission is done and they can go be romantic and poo poo, only she ain’t answering. Curiously, there’s no mention of what he might do if he heard the PCs coming. If a character makes an INT+Perception (3) roll, they can see the following lady.  That’s Alabaster, waifu of Rattler. We’ll get to her in a second, but if she’s spotted she’ll merely do the hush sign and look afraid. If the PCs attack now they get +2D to initiative, otherwise Factor makes his perception check (basically) and combat starts. If they’ve successfully stealthed up here, I dunno why they don’t just get a full on surprise round or whatever. It’s an easy fight, and Factor dies in 2-3 shots he never saw coming.    Ahem, moving along. I think SMV knows that most GMs are in risk of being savagely beaten to death by their enraged players should they ever discover that, so for once there’s actually some good loot to be had here. For starters, with a perception check they can find a fuckin Trailblazer in its cause stashed under the floorboards, along with a decent amount (oddly specific numbers though) of various ammunition caiburs. Factor himself has okay armor, a decent gun, and several fairly potent grenades (no artifacts though). Factor’s transponder will start to heat up in his cheek, as it doesn’t sense a heartbeat anymore. A combo of AGI + Dexterity and INT+Medicine (3) lets you extract it before it goes poof. So long as it touches skin, it senses a heartbeat and cools down. Why would you want to go to the trouble? Well, said transponder is a small metal pin that contains authorization codes for various sanctioned caches used by Chronicler spooks. Factor’s boss is a generous one, and while I’ve yet to see these caches detailed, they’re probably full of good poo poo if the PCs find one. This warehouse also contains a bunch of drugs (both medical and Burn), as well as a bunch of crudely drawn maps with X’s on them. There’s also a map marked with nearby Hellvetic supply camps combined with an explosive inventory list. (Also a Hellvetic sapper medal is found wedged between two floorboards) Is that enough hints that a Hellvetic deserter has planted power explosives in key locations? I sure hope it is, because I’m not sure how it could get anymore obvious than that. That’s it for loot, but if the PCs want to lift up a heavy door they find a bunch of various birds stitched together in the vague shape of a kneeling woman. Alabaster would have known what this was about, too bad she’s gone. TOO BAD YOU LET THE APOCALYPTIC JUST WALK AWAY! Sorry. The PCs get back to the Resistance Camp at 11am. They’ve now been awake for 28 hours, and have maybe gotten an hour or two of sleep in there somewhere if they were lucky. At this point, they’d like to sleep. Well too fuckin’ bad, because General Zoe has a date with destiny! She sees the flight of the Unya as a sign of cowardice, so she’s going to take the Iron Brothers on alone. Mayor Vericon shows up again with some carrier pigeons so they can ask the nearby cities for help, because they’re dead meat without reinforcement (he’s right). They argue a bit, and then he releases them. Then they get shot down. (the Firebird sniper Hexell is responsible, but we don’t know that yet). Zoe does not question a sniper literally shooting her messengers. I’m starting to think this woman is not a very good military leader. ”General Zoe” posted:“Great idea, mayor!” Zoe shouts. “Resistance, we cross over to Cour Argent. Right now! Hamza has given up on his domain. It‘s our job to take back the city and kick some Iron Brother rear end.” Zoe doesn’t know poo poo about the Firebirds if asked, but can confirm the positions of the buildings marked by the crudely drawn maps, and if they tell here about Factor and the Emitters, she asks them to destroy them at once! In the meantime she’ll be off The first location is right next to the Butcher’s shop the characters lost a Scrapper’s trail in on day one. They have to succeed on a INS+Survival (3) roll to find a hidden entrance to an underground tunnel. There’s a dead end they can go down for basically no reason, so we’ll assume that they follow the main path. There they’ll find the 3 Scrappers that Rattler wasted from behind. The corpses weren’t looted, so they still have armour/weapons/ammo you can take, and there’s some digging equipment and a Scrapper radio receiver as well. It is now 1:00pm And then Decoy 5 shows up. You’ll hear his Steam Drone first, and get a chance to roll AGI+Stealth (3) to turn out your lights and hide. The result of the roll doesn’t seem to matter, because the book literally says “The Characters go unnoticed.” right after calling for said roll. If the characters make themselves known, he holds up his hands and professes that he’s not one of the attackers. He’ll basically spill a lot info with no real prodding, although he does lie slightly. He claims that Operation Mirage is a rogue OP, when its very much approved, but off the books. He’ll admit that they started the civil war, the Scrappers have tunnels like this all over Toulon, and he’s out to kill Mirage herself. Then he notices that a beam holding up the tunnel’s roof ain’t looking so hot. As a side note, if the PCs know Decoy 5 from In thy Blood, he’ll be a bit friendlier and try to win them over, he’ll even admit he’s in the tunnels investigating some leads regarding the Firebirds. Chekov’s gun, it starts to crack. We are told that the PCs run one way, Decoy 5 the other. For some reason his drone ended up with the PCs in the confusion, so he asks them (through the Drone’s speaker) to keep it with them so he can retrieve it later once they’re topside. That happens pretty quick and without much fuss after they go forward a bit. It is now 3:00pm The ladder exits the tunnel into a boarded up shop in the Silver Axis. Suddenly, the PCs hear a radio message come over the Chronicler channel. Mirage says the op is compromised and calls a full retreat to the Alcove. Though the replies of the other members of Commando Requiem are coded, the PCs can make out that nobody seems to understand fully what just happened, or why. Decoy 5’s voice then comes on over the Drone and tells them that Mirage is the traitor, and where the Alcove is (Ferrallies). Trying to get their across Cour Argent is a death sentence, so they’ll have to pack up the Drone and take a boat. Luckily, there’s a shabby motorboat right there! As they’re piloting said motorboat, they hear another conversation over the radio. Nestor has heard about Mirage’s defection, and is going to put the boots to her with a bunch of his goons. He’s ordering a Scrapper by the name of Hurlant to crash a freight gondola full of explosives into the port’s massive petro towers. The characters have to stop her, both because the resulting inferno would cook Hamza’s ship in the harbour and a good part of the city, and because the book says that they have to. It is now 5:00pm So, the characters can make a combo INT+Science (3) and INT+Engineering (2) to determine what kind of danger this action poses. I mean, gas go boom doesn’t seem like it should need five successes to figure out, but I digress. No roll required to catch up to the gondola though. We’re told that she wants to take as many people to hell with her as possible, and that the battle is bestial. Um, maybe in the narrative Marko had in his head maybe. This lady has 16 total wounds, 2 armor, and even her active defenses are a 7. What’s going to happen is that the Hellvetic PC sees her, aims, and it’ll take one maybe two of his shots (if he rolls dogshit) to put her down. In Degenesis, NPCs and PCs are built the same, and there’s a fairly low ceiling as far as survival goes without crazy future tech. Most single mob boss fights are going to end like this, with your combat monkey either ending poo poo right there, or by mostly ending poo poo and the rest of the party finishing the job. The same can happen to your PCs as well, which is why they should invest in the initiative potential. Anyways, the book tells us in the next paragraph that the characters have defeated Hurlant. Whew, thank god for that. I dunno what we would have done against a drug-addled woman with a lead pipe and a flare gun if we actually had to roll dice. However, the Gondola is still speeding towards the Petro towers. Hurlant broke off the key in the ignition, so the only thing to do is break the interlock of the steering wheel. This takes a cooperative BOD+Force (14) complex action, and you have 4 turns to do this. Succeed, and the gondola turns 180 degrees and slams into the quay wall in Ferrallies. What happens if they fail?  The book does not say, but that’s probably a TPK followed by an actual IRL murder. Anyways, crashing doesn’t do any damage but the PCs don’t have long to take cover before an Iron Brother patrol happens by. They also see that the Unya starts to move in the harbor, as if it was going out to sea.  This stuff will never not make me angry. Anyways, if the PCs look out in the harbor they see a bunch of Apocalyptic pirates. The Black Flock has finally arrived. They show up in an armada of junky-yet well armed boats, with one firing a warning shot over the Unya.  It is now 6:00pm. The PCs arrive at the Alcove about an hour ahead of Nestor and the Iron Brothers. Unfortunately for them, Rattler and Baptiste got here first, took Mirage hostage, killed the other Chroniclers present, and left. The PCs find this out by rewinding some security footage, and with a couple of rolls and enough triggers the PCs can figure out some interesting things. First off, they learn that the type of equipment required to run a city-wide camera surveillance network like this takes support from the very highest level in the Protectorate, so this is no rogue op. Also, a Scalar (high ranking Chronicler) named Nullify is being sent a feed of everything via an encrypted connection. If the PCs could loot this place, this stuff is beyond the value of drafts we’re told. The timing breaks down even more in this bit. So, the PCs arrive and the Chronicler panopticon at 6:00pm, with the scrappers just half an hour behind them. That’s where we're at here. The PCs will then hear a conversation between Nestor and Dietch, and they can see on the cameras that they’re less than 10 minutes away after scanning the security footage for Rattler and Baptiste. Nestor will order Dietch to bring Zhora (the consul and Hamza’s sister) to the Alcove, along with her six scribes. They’re going to execute Zhora and shoot her head at the Unya, while the men have some  fun with her scribes. After this message, they’ll also hear the telltale sign of interference that an emitter causes.So, they have some poo poo to do. There’s innocents to save, and an emitter to bring down. We’re told you could just shoot it, but doing so would bring down the Scrappers on your head. No, the safer option is to wait until dusk, climb up, hide amongst the cables entwined around the antenna, rip it off while trying not to fall, and then sneaking away BECAUSE YOU WAITED FOR DUSK WHEN AN ARMY WAS 10 MINUTES AWAY! Seriously, in what fuckin’ world is waiting a good idea? Just shoot the dang thing and book it towards the hostages. You’ve got a lead of several minutes, plus the option of maybe using a silenced weapon? Shesh. Note, this is not a joke. Waiting for dusk cover means waiting for the Scrappers to arrive, and needing to make four pretty hard rolls to not attract their attention and get turbo-murdered as a consequence. If you’re up on the tower, from your perch you see the Scrappers surround and butcher the Judges for betraying the cause or whatever. Eisenhauer murders the Black Judge Arcville. Who’s he you might ask?  He shows up one other time in this adventure, when you rescue the Spitalians he’s kinda in the area. Otherwise he’s of no value to this adventure, and pretty much exists to get punked on. Rescuing the hostages is pretty easy. Zhora is antagonizing them so the PCs are able to surprise them pretty easily. One of Dietch’s thugs tries to take a girl hostage, saving her requires an AGI+Projectiles (5) roll to nail the guy in the forehead. It’s a pretty simple combat, shoot’em, grab the girls, and make way for the harbor and thus the Unya. It is now 9pm, apparently. I’m not really sure how what seems like maybe a half hour was 3 hours, but whatever. You and your damsels make it to the harbor, but whoops Nestor saw you on the cams and has sent Eisenhauer to gently caress you up! Zhora helps the girls get in a nearby boat while the PCs deal with a raging steroid freak.  You have to make a PSY+Faith+Willpower (3) roll to even fight him at alll because he’s like, so primal and scary yo. Failure means you have to spend an ego point, a botch means you run away in fear and probably into the arms of the oncoming Scrapper mob headed to backEisenhauer up. So, botch this roll and you probably die. Eisenhauer is pretty tough, but he has a heart attack and dies mid-fight. Seriously. Post-apocalyptic steroids are dangerous yo. It is now 10pm. The PCs push out into the harbor, where they are stopped by and order to board the ship of Meridian, a leader of the Black Flock.  He and Zhora make introductions, talk a bit of turkey etc. Hamza then lights up a signal flare, and Zhora explains that means he wants to negotiate with the Black Flock. Fast forward a little bit, and Meridian and Hamza has out terms. The Black Flock will take back his city, in exchange there will be no more Scorugers on Corpse (forward post they used to launch anti-pirate raids), Amnesty for his flock, and safe passage for a year through the Mediterranean sea. Hamza at first doesn’t want to give up that much, but he really doesn’t have much leverage, so he agrees to the terms. Meridian also wants the head of a man heavily tattooed with a maze all over his body (Rattler). Orma, the African Scrapper is confused, because that very man delivered Mirage right to him earlier that day! Anyways, they bring Mirage up from her cell and do some interrogation which, much like the negotiation, does not involve the PCs in any way and is just NPCs talking to each other. Hamza gets her talk by first ranting about how cool African hypercapitalism is (he even calls it a faith lol, with the first dinar ever minted being the most valuable relic he owns), and the promises to his wiley ways with money to tank the draft economy unless she talks. It is now 3am Mirage spills her guts regarding Rattler, he’s just some assassin she hired in case the Brothers got out of hand. Meridian does not believe her, he’s been having Tarot visions regarding him and is a true believer in that poo poo. He thinks Rattler is some sort of spirit or something by the way he’s nested in his mind, and Mirage is trying to cover for him or something. Before he can cut off her arm to make her talk, the other two female leaders of the Black Flock come in. Sabata, and Callisto are their names. They say some more Tarot nonsense, and then they order the attack to begin at dawn tomorrow!  And that’s day 2 complete. Next time, THE FINAL DAY.
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Apr 7, 2021 21:26
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That Old Tree posted:I'm pretty sure the LotW fanfix is on 1.5.2. Yeah, I just refer to them fanfix collectively as 1.5. I would love to be in a game of it someday. It one my favorites but its a lot.
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Apr 7, 2021 21:49
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GimpInBlack posted:All these styles have a basic energy attack as their 1st level technique, though, so you're never going to give up the energy attack forever. Oh yeah, I can see a revised edition where the Level 1 Technique for each Internal Style has a rider that increases its bonus by +5 for each higher level of techniques you've bought into, so it's always relevant. But I can also see the sense in what they went with.
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Apr 7, 2021 21:57
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Age of Sigmar: Lumineth Realm-Lords Special Updates!  With the release of Broken Realms: Teclis, the second of the Broken Realms event books, there's been a lot of big changes! An entire new half of the Lumineth army has been released, for one. And, well, Nagash has gotten a severe rear end-kicking. A lot has changed with Teclis - more than did with Morathi, which could be easily summarized as 'Morathi accidentally releases Slaanesh while achieving godhood and betraying everyone.' Teclis is a bit more complex. What happened? We open our story in the midst of the Necroquake, in the Hyshian Free City known as Settler's Gain. The Necroquake has released a massive army of gheists, who have laid siege to the city, breaking through the Lumineth wards easily. The undead actually savotaged the wards well in advance, allowing them to bypass them in key places during the attack. The Lumineth and human defenders of the city tried their best, but the Nighthaunt forces nearly overwhelmed them. However, the Lumineth and Collegiate mages descended from the high spires to banish ghosts en masse, buying time for the Lumineth Dawnriders to arrive. The Vanari forces were able to give much-needed respite to the city's defenders. This, in turn, allowed the Collegiate Arcane to unleash their greatest weapon. The Collegiate's local grand master, Arcobalde Lazerne, unveiled his personal Luminark, the Beacon of Intellect, and unleashed dozens of lasers upon the ghostly armies. Despite all this, the city nearly fell. There were just too many ghosts attacking, and their losses seemed not to bother them at all. The waves of death magic flowing out of Shyish kept them coming, striking from two sides to divide the defending forces. As midnight neared, the defense began to waver...but it did not break. This is because Teclis and Celennar themselves arrived to defend the city, destroying swathes of undead with every move. He found the leaders of the attack and purged Nagash's control over them, purifying and resurrecting them into mortal men once more...while they were still hundreds of feet in the air. (They were, after all, willing slaves rather than forced to obey Nagash.) Teclis saved Settler's Gain, turning the tide of battle and pushing the Nighthaunt back. The defenders rallied to him, and though it took through the night and the entire next day, every undead within the city limits was destroyed...though at the loss of thousands of lives, and hundreds of them with their souls captured by Nagash. Nagash swore vengeance against Teclis, who personally confronted him through a spy-spell and offered him a chance to surrender and withdraw from Hysh. This opens Act One, the First Spearing. Teclis gathers an invasion force of Lumineth and assaults Shyish through a hidden realmgate in Hallost's mountains. They use Alarith magic to avoid the Ossiarchs as they move through Praetoris, and succeed because at that moment, Katakros is busy in the Eightpoints fighting Archaon. Within a week, the Teclian forces have made their way to the heart of the Ossiarch Empire. They assault it from within, empowered by geomantic magic and bright lasers, which they use to dismantle the defensive artillery of the Ossiarch forces. The flying megaliths allow them to outpace the Ossiarchs, as Teclis has no need to rest in using his magic. They perform rites to seal tainted lands, weakening the forces unleashed by the Necroquake and Chaos alike. The entire thing is a massive insult to Nagash by design, and the march takes them to the Triptych, a trio of massive fortresses that each bear a giant statue of an Ossiarch general, with Katakros being the largest. Teclis' army wieps out the Morghasts left to defend the place and the Calligraves set about burning a massive glyph of sanctity into the land, creating a magical working. There's a problem, though - the Katakros statue is armed with a weapon that can nullify magic, so several of the flying megaliths are sent falling, but Celennarsaves them as the other statues come to life under Ossiarch magic. The Lumineth offense is halted at the Triptych thanks to the giant statues. The ossiarchs begin their counterattack, forcing the Lumineth to take defensive positions behind their fallen megaliths. Teclis takes on the entire Ossiarch army's collective mages, simultaneously fighting in over a dozen arcane duels at once, and it takes him a while to burn out his foes, leaving his forces to fight on their own. Fortunately, the Teclian Vanguard are able to adapt, but the Ossiarchs form up shield walls and form their own defensive blockade rather than trying to push through the Teclian defense. Their mages transform their shields and bodies into a giant living scaffold, growing up the cliff face rather than trying to climb. The aelves are overwhelmed by the forces arrayed against them and unleash their aetherquartz reserves. It is not enough, and the Vanari call a retreat as many of them are cut down. However, the Alarith forces move in the defend them. At first it works, but the Ossiarch forces reconfigure, changing up their attack pattern from berserking to pinpoint accuracy. This allows them to pierce the weak spots in the Alarith guard, though at great cost to themselves - they have opened their defenses, and the Alarith give as good as they get. While many Alarith die, they are able to make a push that ends the Ossiarch climb. Another branch of Vanari forces are caught in a pinch partway around the Triptych, where another megalith fell but in a worse position. As the Ossiarchs mass to attack them, their leader emerges - Lyrior Uthralle, Lord Regent of Ymetrica and Voice of Tyrion. He leads the Lumineth cavalry in a charge against their attackers. The Ossiarchs expect them to break when they form an aegis, but the Dawnrider cavalry are specialists against infantry forces and unleash magical blasts just before impact, then leap over the front Ossiarch lines. The Vanari nearly win the day, but the Ossiarch Liege-Kavalos Horrek Venzai orders his catapults to fire on his own men in order to also strike the Vanari. Uthralle orders a retreat, but many of his men die in the effort thanks to their close formation. All seems lost...except that reinforcements arrive. Teclis had held two other armies in reserve, and they arrive now led by a group of gigantic Spirits of the Mountain, who crush Horrek Venzai's forces. The Ossiarchs have no backup and, in taking down the first army, they have overextended themselves. The new arrivals strike them from behind, tearing through them in short order. The walls of Fortress Tzantari begin to fall under the worldhammer of Vandaris, the spirit of a massive mountain in Ymetrica. Then, the forces of the wind spirits arrive at Fortress Zandtos. Blurring figures in the air swarm around it, unleashing massive laser blaststhat strike at all of the architectural weak spots in the design. A cyclone rises around the second of three forts, and it collapses. The Triptych is lost. At this point, though, the Lumineth forces are left with few places to move to. Horrek Venzai has retreated to regroup, and the Lumineth are unable to take down all of his messengers. Their presence is revealed to the rest of the Ossiarch Empire, and the Stalliarch Lords ride to catch them. While at first, the Dawnriders and Hurakan Windchargers are able to outmaneuver their foes and keep them busy, they are living beings and tire. Eventually, the undead are able to outpace them. Windspeaker Nerethai, leader of the Hurakan forces, loop around to try and get to safety while the Vanari make a last stand to protect them. For a while, it works, but the Vanari cavalry are slaughtered to an aelf despite their excellent fighting. The Hurakan meet up with the armies that shattered the Triptych, and both groups retreat to Hysh. Another Hurakan force, led by Lord Djarian the Sighing Light, has moved through Praetoris to Cadavaris, hoping to destabilize and confuse the Ossiarch supply lines. They're too fast to be caught, so the local Ossiarch liege, Khebukhan, calls in a favor to the Petrifex Elite, who summon up a magical mist of soul byproducts as a trap for the Hurakan raiders, hoping to force them into it at the only bridge across a key river. The Hurakan, however, stop at the river edge, having little need for bridges. They summon up the wind spirit Xenthe the Revealer, who blows the mist away and reveals the enemy hidden within it. The Windchargers fire massive arrows at the Ossiarchs, relying on the sentient winds of the Hurakan spirits to guide them to the soulgems of the Ossiarch warriors. They form a gap in the Ossiarch line, and the wind then lifts Djarian's entire raiding force into the air and drops them on the other side of the river, where they gather up the heads of the fallen Ossiarchs and ride off. The raiders split up into three groups. One heads for their mortal allies in Cadaveris to bring news of the Petrifex defeat. The heads are brought to the human city of Glymmsforge in Lyria, and the shattered soulgems are brought to Lethis. This is all a massive sign of victory and hope for the Order forces there, showing the humans that the Ossiarchs can be defeated and that they had help now. Across Shyish, human cities begin to prepare, the fires of hope spreading quickly and powerfully. Teclis sparks a new wave of resistance to Nagash - a key element of his plan. The other lies in the geomantic signs he's been burning into the land. These runes of rescue and imprisonment protect the underworlds they are burned into from being drawn into the Shyish Nadir, locking them in place and denying Nagash's hunger for souls and magic. The main problem is that he's underestimated the resolve of the Ossiarchs and their desire to strike back harder. New soldiers are already under construction, using the very corpses the Lumineth had left on the field and the souls of those who fell in battle. Nagash spends a while gloating over the fact that the aelf souls will be in constant torment over being blended with human ones and rendered dilute and impure. Next time: Act 2 - War of the Mortarchs Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 21:59
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GimpInBlack posted:
Thinking about this, could you make it paired by having the scabbard and the sword count as the paired weapon? That and as much as I enjoy your telling about the cool kung fu set up, I still have little idea of how to resolve things in game. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 23:16
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Josef bugman posted:Thinking about this, could you make it paired by having the scabbard and the sword count as the paired weapon? e: whoops didn't see what you were asking about specifically. You totally could if you wanted to and your GM was okay with removing the type restriction on it.
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Apr 7, 2021 23:37
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Hipster Occultist posted:The Killing Game, Day 2 One would think that with Marko working with Marvel so long, he'd know they could just, like... do a comic series with all the artists they've pulled instead. And probably actually make more money doing it. Every time I continue to be impressed how hard they railroad, even though I know what's in store.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:01
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Mors' Age of Sigmar chat has inspired me to pick up a copy of Soulbound and now I'm brainstorming a campaign for when the world opens back up again So thanks for that
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Apr 8, 2021 02:39
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Mors Rattus posted:...purifying and resurrecting them into mortal men once more...while they were still hundreds of feet in the air...
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Apr 8, 2021 02:56
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Mors Rattus posted:Age of Sigmar: Lumineth Realm-Lords I know we're getting this 2nd hand but there seems to be no weight to AoE. It's like a game of "Fortunately I had another army behind me!". "Unfortunately the army is destroyed by magic!". "Fortunately I was able to raise that army through magic!". "Unfortunately I had wizards who destroyed it with magic, again!". Also, what do undead need for "supply lines"? Also, also, Slannesh is back again as though nothing happened? Nothing matters, no one ever dies, all the old characters from 30 years ago are still kicking around.
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Apr 8, 2021 04:02
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Comstar posted:I know we're getting this 2nd hand but there seems to be no weight to AoE. It's like a game of "Fortunately I had another army behind me!". "Unfortunately the army is destroyed by magic!". "Fortunately I was able to raise that army through magic!". "Unfortunately I had wizards who destroyed it with magic, again!". The supply lines are new materials to make new troops, weapons, and fortifications. Slaanesh is not quite back yet. But an aspect of Slaanesh managed to escape the Prison as a result of Morathi's meddling, which is something major for the setting, as Slaanesh has been entirely trapped since the start. Froghammer posted:Mors' Age of Sigmar chat has inspired me to pick up a copy of Soulbound and now I'm brainstorming a campaign for when the world opens back up again It's a super fun game and I love the new Bestiary.
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Apr 8, 2021 04:09
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Comstar posted:Also, also, Slannesh is back again as though nothing happened? Nothing matters, no one ever dies, all the old characters from 30 years ago are still kicking around. Please keep this sentence in mind for Act 2.
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Apr 8, 2021 04:11
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First of all, isn't Apocalyptic tarot meant to be nonsense that Ravens use to control the flock? It was already p. dumb when they were talking about the DOOM CARD BEING PULLED FOR TEH FORTH TIM!!1! So is Alabaster a kidnapping victim or just a prostitute (Magpie) that got domestic violence done to her? Because the Factor came for her in an Apocalyptic hide out, so her friends are OK with what happens to her? Apocalyptics really are the worst. Back to the armored car combat, the devs really love the idea of shooting petrol tanks, as evidenced by the rules for Exo suits and Spitfires. I bet they think it's cinematic as gently caress. Why are the Judges in this mess again? Shouldn't they be loner lawmen, not racial cleansing posse builders? Why would be this far away from Justitian/Protectorate? And when I was doing my write up, I understood Corpse to be the super pirate pirate stronghold - but it isn't? God, this adventure sucks poo poo.
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Apr 8, 2021 07:04
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Josef bugman posted:Thinking about this, could you make it paired by having the scabbard and the sword count as the paired weapon? Not with Jade Spirit Sword specifically (unless, like Leraika said, you're willing to house-rule it), but you may recall we talked about Special Weapons both in the previous update and the character creation update--those do not have the restriction on adding the Paired tag, so you can absolutely pay 3 Destiny at character creation to have a Paired, Sword weapon that you describe as fighting with your sword in one hand and the scabbard in the other. That's the kind of thing Special Weapons are meant for, modeling weapons that kind of fit into multiple categories, whether they're fantastical (the flying guillotine is a thrown beheading machine on the end of a long chain, depending on your inclination you could call that Flexible, Saber or Flexible, Ranged or even Ranged, Saber) or historical (a guandao is literally a saber blade on the end of a long stick, so it makes sense to call it a Saber, Spear or maybe Saber, Staff). But if there's anything else you'd like me to go into more detail on, just ask! I'm happy to talk more about this weird, janky, awesome kung fu game.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:35
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GimpInBlack posted:Not with Jade Spirit Sword specifically (unless, like Leraika said, you're willing to house-rule it), but you may recall we talked about Special Weapons both in the previous update and the character creation update--those do not have the restriction on adding the Paired tag, so you can absolutely pay 3 Destiny at character creation to have a Paired, Sword weapon that you describe as fighting with your sword in one hand and the scabbard in the other. That's the kind of thing Special Weapons are meant for, modeling weapons that kind of fit into multiple categories, whether they're fantastical (the flying guillotine is a thrown beheading machine on the end of a long chain, depending on your inclination you could call that Flexible, Saber or Flexible, Ranged or even Ranged, Saber) or historical (a guandao is literally a saber blade on the end of a long stick, so it makes sense to call it a Saber, Spear or maybe Saber, Staff). Oh no I really enjoy the write up! It's the game itself that causes me to be somewhat lost as to how things work. I have the book of this and, well, the resolution mechanics seem to be so in depth I have difficulty matching up everything. In a lot of instances I think it's the interaction with an almost "WoD" type of dice mechanic.
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Apr 8, 2021 09:04
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Josef bugman posted:In a lot of instances I think it's the interaction with an almost "WoD" type of dice mechanic. Ah, yeah, I can see this being a source of confusion, since aside from "rolling a bunch of d10s" the dice mechanic isn't very much like WoD at all--it's still a "roll result + modifiers vs. target number or opposing roll result + modifier" system like D&D. Though maybe WEG D6 or Shadowrun are better analogies since they also use dice pools. It's just that the way you generate the roll result in Legends of the Wulin is a little weird and not as straightforward as "add up the values on your dice."
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Apr 8, 2021 09:22
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IIRC an elemental hyperactivity is a huge huge boon for a rank 4 character, effectively doubling your chi per turn. That's worth a little mutation.
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Apr 8, 2021 09:44
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GimpInBlack posted:Ah, yeah, I can see this being a source of confusion, since aside from "rolling a bunch of d10s" the dice mechanic isn't very much like WoD at all--it's still a "roll result + modifiers vs. target number or opposing roll result + modifier" system like D&D. Though maybe WEG D6 or Shadowrun are better analogies since they also use dice pools. It's just that the way you generate the roll result in Legends of the Wulin is a little weird and not as straightforward as "add up the values on your dice." Yeah it just seems a bit complex? I still enjoy reading about it, but in the same way that I find myself kind of unable to really engage. Also becoming very aware that I'm just really bad with dice pool mechanics. Stuff like WFRP I can grasp instantly, but this just keeps slipping away from me.
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Apr 8, 2021 09:53
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Comstar posted:I know we're getting this 2nd hand but there seems to be no weight to AoE. It's like a game of "Fortunately I had another army behind me!". "Unfortunately the army is destroyed by magic!". "Fortunately I was able to raise that army through magic!". "Unfortunately I had wizards who destroyed it with magic, again!". Quoting this for posterity.
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Apr 8, 2021 12:54
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:Quoting this for posterity. I hope to see some character growth and development! Growing in size to become a Chaos God or Deamon doesn't count - they can't change by definition. Comstar fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 13:38
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Part Seven: How the gently caress scholars????????????????????????? How the gently caress priests, too, but mostly scholars. Hoo boy, here we go. The Secret Arts are the other big mechanical subsystem in Legends of the Wulin besides kung fu fights, and where combat is (at least for the most part) a complex system pretty well explained, Secret Arts are, IMHO at least, actually a pretty simple system that's rather poorly explained. This has been a topic several people have brought up as a thing that confused them deeply, so I'm going to do my best to unfuck the explanation of the Secret Arts for y'all here. This isn't going to be me trying to rewrite the Secret Arts mechanics--I might invent some new terminology to help with clarity, and in places where I think the rules are genuinely ambiguous or missing I'll give my best guess for how they work, but this is still fundamentally Secret Arts as presented in the book. So, let's start with the basics: What the hell even are Secret Arts? At the simplest level, they are the main way that characters create and manipulate Chi Conditions. (the secondary way to create Chi Conditions is to punch people in the face, but since that can only create Injury Conditions, it's not as versatile.) Each of the five Archetypes (Warriors, Doctors, Courtiers, Priests, and Scholars) have their own Secret Arts, which let them interact with different kinds of Conditions in various different ways. So far, so simple, right? Well, the game also heavily ties the mechanics of these Arts into Daoist philosophy, the Five-Phase (or Five Element) Cycle, and other esoteric concepts. On the one hand, this really grounds the mechanics in the setting, and once you get your head around them they absolutely support very genre-appropriate actions in the fiction. On the other hand, if you feel the need to tell your readers at least three times in the beginning of the chapter "we promise, you don't have to memorize the works of Laozi or become a practitioner of traditional Chinese Medicine to use these rules!" you might have gotten a little in the weeds. Instead of saying "Doctors can create medical Conditions which can do XYZ, and if you want to incorporate it here's a primer on traditional Chinese medicine you can draw on to add flavor to your descriptions," Legends of the Wulin says "here are a bunch of rules heavily based on concepts in traditional Chinese medicine, but you can ignore all that if you want." In theory they sound roughly equivalent, but in practice sifting the simple mechanics out of the Daoist philosophy is a lot harder than layering Daoist philosophy over the top of simple mechanics. But here we are, so let's press on and see what we can do with all this. To begin with, I'm going to create some more rigorous definitions surrounding Chi Conditions, because they have a lot of intersecting axes that interrelate and I think having clear terminology will greatly aid in the process. So, moving forward:
 So, this image is meant to be a quick-reference guide for the fiction of your Conditions, based on the type of Conditions your Arts create. It does this in a rather unintuitive way, though: for one, it completely omits the Warrior's Conditions, and instead of giving you some example symptoms for Medical Conditions, it just lists two organs associated with that element. No, I don't know why, and we'll get to why that's extra-unhelpful when we talk about Doctors in particular. Likewise, those "Inspirations" listed for each element don't show up anywhere else in the rules, because, when you get to the Courtier's Arts themselves, you find out that what they actually are is an opposing pair of Virtues! This is a full page illustration with a ton of blank space, you had enough room to write two words, for God's sake! But the long and the short of it is, if you want to create, say, a Condition whose fiction requires the target to be very sad, you're creating a Metal Passion, because Passions are the kind of Condition that deal with powerful emotions and Grief is, specifically, the Metal element's associated Passion. The diagram also shows the two interrelated cycles of the five elements in Daoist thought: the "progression cycle" (the clockwise circle going around) and the "controlling cycle" (the pentagram inside the circle). For purposes of the game mechanics, these matter when you start Manipulating Conditions, which we'll talk about momentarily. But this is also why all that "you can just wing it!" stuff is kinda not true... bare minimum you need to understand the Elemental associations in order to Manipulate Conditions, because all of those rules say things like "create an opposing Element Condition" or "move the Condition one step along the progression cycle," and you have to know how to adjust the fiction accordingly. As for the Secret Arts themselves, each one is made up of a few Loresheets (i.e. discrete chunks of setting info and mechanics around a particular subject): A General Lore that gives an overview of what the art is, talks about it in terms of how it expresses Daoist philosophy, and goes into detail about the kinds of Conditions it works with. It also tells you what Skills you use to both use this Art and what Skill your target uses to resist it and the most common Effects its Conditions create. This Lore by itself doesn't give you any ability to interact mechanically with Conditions, it's just a primer. It's also usually free for any character with at least +5 in the Archetype Skill: even if you're not a capital-D Doctor, having +5 Medicine means you know generally about Medical Conditions. A Toolset Lore that describes the methods and paraphernalia required to use the Art in question. These are primarily just a narrative requirement for describing your actions when performing Secret Arts, but sometimes they offer a bonus in return for some form of extra effort or challenge. The Discovery Lore tells you how your Art, specifically, creates Chi Conditions. It's called a Discovery Lore specifically because, while from a game mechanics perspective you, the player, are saying "I want this NPC to have (Condition X)" and then rolling a skill check to make it happen, within the fiction of the game your character is sagaciously observing his subject and noticing a Condition that was always there. That's why the Difficulty of this roll is based on the plausibility of the Condition, ranging from 10 (e.g. "Minister Zhao never shuts up about how much he wants to kill the Golden Plum Bandit, it's blindingly obvious he has an Anger Passion") all the way up to 60 or more ("so... you think the Golden Plum Bandit is Minister Zhao, despite the fact that the Golden Plum Bandit doesn't wear a mask and you've seen them both in the same room together?"). If you succeed on the roll, your assessment was obviously correct and the Condition was retroactively always there, and now you can take advantage of it. The actual, specific Condition created is created in concert by you and the Sage: generally you get to set the Type and Effect, while the Sage determines the Fiction--which includes one specific way the Condition can be automatically removed without going through the Recovery process. For example, if you've Discovered a Joy Passion in an NPC who is in love, that Condition might go away if her lover betrays her. Your Discovery Lore also tells you things like the Severity and Recovery values of Conditions you discover. Manipulation Lores are where things get interesting, and once again, poorly explained. Once you know about a Condition, either by Discovering it or just recognizing a preexisting Condition, you can put your Arts to work on it. You can make it more or less severe, create new Conditions using it as a springboard, or even change its Fiction entirely. Different Arts have access to different kinds of Manipulation, usually for an additional Destiny cost, but the basic list is as follows:
Finally, there's an Extraordinary Techniques Lore that offers various special abilities for purchase with Destiny points. Some directly affect your Secret Arts, like making your base Conditions more potent, while others are just neat, thematically-appropriate abilities. I particularly like the Courtier technique that lets you claim a bonus to climb a wall if you first lecture it on proper Confucian virtues. So that's the general mechanics for Secret Arts, hopefully laid out in a less-confusing and intimidating manner than the book. Next time we'll start talking about specific Secret Arts, in rough order of complexity from least to most. In my opinion, that order is Warriors, Scholars, Courtiers, Priests, Doctors--so naturally the book starts right off with Doctors. We won't be doing that, though. Next Time: KUNG FU FITNESS REGIMENS! GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 13:59
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SkyeAuroline posted:One would think that with Marko working with Marvel so long, he'd know they could just, like... do a comic series with all the artists they've pulled instead. And probably actually make more money doing it. Every time I continue to be impressed how hard they railroad, even though I know what's in store. I really don't get it either. As a business strategy, putting this narrative out as a RPG is going to outright frustrate most players I know, and even the ones willing to assume the pretty large workload of kludging this book into something a group of PCs could actually play are going to be few in number. They are right about one thing, in that this takes and experienced GM to run. I think Marko is still stuck in the 90's, when this approach to RPGs was all the rage and actually performed pretty well for a time. This is what he likes best, and while SMV could look at how RPGs have developed for the past 30+ years, its not want he'd want to play, so he doesn't write that. At least, that's my armchair interpretation. I'm just having fun ragging on all of this poo poo design. JcDent posted:First of all, isn't Apocalyptic tarot meant to be nonsense that Ravens use to control the flock? It was already p. dumb when they were talking about the DOOM CARD BEING PULLED FOR TEH FORTH TIM!!1! It's real, at least in some sense. All 3 leaders of the Black Flock have been having visions of the Phoenix, and apparently the Abomination over the Creator has only been drawn when really big and terrible things are about to happen. Prior to this, I think that combo came up last when the (now dead, kinda) Pheromancer King of all Franka was born a few decades ago. In addition, we'll find out in the next book that some of the Tarot symbols link back to sacred Jehammedan scrolls, which means the RG is involved somehow. Alabaster is a Magpie yeah, and not a very mentally stable one either. She's hopelessly in love with Rattler for some abusive/psycho-sexual reasons, while he is incredibly abusive but keeps her around because he knows he can exploit that love and turn it into absolute loyalty. And yeah, she was left in the hideout to wait for Factor and distract him while they did other things. If the PCs did not show up, she'd end up killing him while they were loving. The Judges are sent mostly for a couple reasons. The first being as some extra muscle, and the second being to establish law and order after the coup. Arcville was meant to essentially be the city magistrate once hostilities died down. However, he does vitrually nothing the entire adventure. I think the PCs see him once, from afar as they rescue the Spitalians. That's basically it, and then you see the Scrappers turn on them because Operation Mirage is declared a failure and the Judges are trying to leave Toulon.  Hopefully that helps, Corpse is the staging ground the Scourgers use for punitive raids on pirates in the region.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:49
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Talas posted:That was pretty funny and cruel at the same time. I think this trick pulled twice already: once by Ynnead trolling Ahriman by showing that he can bring back Rubric Marines to be real flesh and people and not just dust filled armor, and someone either in AoS or 40K had cleansed some Nurgle warriors.
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Apr 8, 2021 15:30
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