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"Annatar Giftgiver" and the quest to beat up Gollum was worth a chuckle.
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Aug 1, 2024 15:55
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 Back with Harrison Armory, we have the Saladin from the core rulebook!  The Saladin is a fairly straightforward Defender that is well known for being a bit of a one-trick pony. It doesn't have all that much going for it in the "interesting" category, but it does one thing and it does it well: Keeping allies safe. The Saladin and its License Gear are all focused around protecting friendlies, and it only has one weapon mount with little to back it up in its own Licenses. Overall, the Saladin's stats are unsurprising for its role: It's Size 2, has 1 Armor, and 12 base HP, on top of an okay base Repair Cap, bad Evasion and Speed, and, surprisingly, average Sensors and E-Defense with a lot of base SP. Of course, being HA, it also has big base Heat Cap. It's immune to Shredded, which is pretty interesting and helpful, and along with the obligatory Guardian it has Warp Shield, which allows it to force DFF on any attack made on an ally within Sensors. The Core Power is kind of mid. It allows you to make attacking one ally a very bad idea for the enemy, as not only does the target gain Resistance to everything the attack might inflict, it adds the danger of forcing said attack to possibly be redirected to something they DON'T want to shoot. It's only once per round, though, and this seems to me to be one of those vanilla Core Powers that really would benefit from the addition of Efficient. It's also not really powerful enough to justify being only once per round. The effect is so limited it feels like Tachyon Loop should have been License Gear, not a Core System. It would have fit better, IMO. That said, the Saladin isn't bad to any degree, just focused on the concept of being a bodyguard. Which isn't too exciting, honestly, but it's a job someone has to do, right? Play a Saladin if you're cool with being the unsung hero of the battlefield.   License I ENCLAVE-Pattern Support Shield: It's a shield that inflicts DFF on anyone firing into it, which is cool. It's not Limited, which is cooler, and it ALSO has an attached Reaction that lets the target get Resistance to the damage if they DO get hit. This is License I gear, and it's pretty awesome. Shatterhead Colony Missiles: No, this is not a Gundam reference. This is the Saladin's only weapon in its gear, and it's frankly mediocre. It has a long range, but for something that costs SP AND the Saladin's only mount to equip, it really doesn't do enough damage. Still, being unaffected by DFF is pretty nice, I bet a Monarch build would like this. The Saladin gets something in L3 that can make this better, too. License II Flash Anchor: The ability to prevent Involuntary Movement is a very rare one, and very valuable when fighting Player Mechs. It's also pretty valuable when fighting NPC mechs, just not as much so. This can be a total lifesaver in many situations, and even if there's not enough Controller mechs on the enemy side for it to get much use... it's 1 SP. That's dirt cheap when the Saladin has 8 of those base. Hardlight Defense System: This one is NOT dirt cheap, and it deserves it. A Burst 3 that blocks line of sight AND all effects. Even if those effects don't need LoS! The Kidd hates this. And if someone tries to jump in it in order to bypass that? Bam, instant 2 Burn, no save. This baby is a Full Action to activate, but it can be easily weaponized by trying to catch as many enemies on the border as possible, which can inflict a LOT of Burn. Depending on the situation, maybe even enough to make a Ghengis jealous. License III Paracausal Mod: This is one of the best Mods in the game, hands down. This baby allows you to ignore EVERYTHING that reduces damage! Being in Saladin L3 limits its use for a lot of builds other than a dedicated Saladin, but if you have the LL to spare, you can sidle in there and nab this for your favorite weapon. This isn't a Unique Mod, but taking a 4 SP system more than once is a really hard sell. On the other hand, this is what I mentioned before that makes the Shatterhead really good. It cannot have DFF, and it cannot have its damage reduced! You might think of a better weapon to slap on that Flex mount, but it's not a BAD option with this. VISHNU-Class NHP: This doesn't stack with Invisible, so if your allies like going Invisible, this isn't a way you can get another 50% miss chance on top of that, but there's nothing saying you can't stack this with Stasis Barrier from the Napoleon. There's some room for debate here that Stasis Barrier stacks very well with VISHNU: It says "a ranged attack fails to hit you or an adjacent allied character". It doesn't say "a ranged attack misses". So if you put the two together, you have a good argument for having two separate 50% chances to negate an attack, and then hitting the offender with 4 free damage. That damage only applies once for every ranged attack, but if you have a bunch of adjacent allies, this will translate into a lot of damage very quickly, more than the Saladin can actually manage through most other means. Next up is the lauded and long-hinted-at Sherman, from the Core Rulebook!  As mentioned, the Sherman is a pretty omnipresent mech. It's on a lot of battlefields, and it's weird when there isn't one around. Plus, it's in official artwork more often than any other Frame in the game. As for why, it shows: It's the quintessential combat mech, with everything one needs for blasting bad guys with guns! For a Striker/Artillery, The Sherman has a surprising amount of durability, with 1 Armor and 10 base HP. It also has decent, if below average Evasion, though it's not so fast. A solid E-Defense is met with bad tech attack and only 5 SP, which is okay because the Sherman doesn't really need SP. It's got one of HA's best reactors, giving it ACC on all Engineering checks and saves, but what comes next is truly magnificent: It gains Soft Cover whenever it Stabilizes or Overheats, adding onto its already great defenses, and whenever it clears heat, it can get half of its Heat Cap back! You I Guess? posted:... Wait, what? Oh yes. Oh yeeees. I've said many times through this write-up that some Frames really like having heat. The Sherman is one of them. It doesn't actually do much with that heat at first, but it gets really nasty later. For now, though, check out this Core System: First, you have an Integrated Weapon that gets stronger and longer range every time you Stabilize, up to 4, at which point it becomes a devastating Line 16 with 4d6 energy damage! That is an INCREDIBLE amount of damage. Honestly, even being at 2 Charge, this weapon is absurdly powerful. The ability to hit multiple enemies with 2d6 Energy damage is by itself an impressive feat. But when you pop your CP... It immediately becomes ready to fire at 4 Charge, and charges up way faster. Not to mention anything in the way that isn't a character gets melted too! That said, you do kind of waste 1 Charge if you Stabilize twice, but eh. The Sherman is best with a bunch of Engineering, but it also functions pretty well with high Agility to bolster its Speed and Evasion. Hull is unnecessary for its role, but Systems can actually be helpful to raise E-Defense if nothing else, or getting more SP. Play a Sherman if you want skul gun.  its head? that's the gun.  License I Reactor Stabilizer: Do I have to describe why you want this? Just take it. What else are you going to use your SP for as a Sherman? Also consider this for... Basically any HA Frame. SOL-Pattern Laser Rifle: It's a laser rifle! Any weapon that inflicts Burn is good in my book. It has a decent range, and best of all, it inflicts Heat on the user! Which is a weird phrase to say. License II ANDROMEDA-Pattern Heavy Laser: It's the Laser Rifle, but more. It has more range, more damage, more burn, more self-inflicted heat. If you love the Laser Rifle, and have no other plans for your Heavy mount, take this. Redundant Systems Upgrade: "Ha, Mecha_Face," you might be saying. "THIS is what else you might use your SP for as a Sherman!" Joke's on you, you'll have enough SP to equip both at this point. Stabilizing as a Quick Action is bonkers, especially for a Sherman, which is why you only get to do this once. Of course, you DID grab some Engineering, right? License III ASURA-Class NHP: This might not give you the ability to interrupt monologue cutscenes, but it does give you the ability to WRECK the action economy once per mission. It's on the Sherman, so you probably want to use this to Stabilize, but it certainly can help you do a LOT of other things. Just keep in mind that you still can't use the same action multiple times in a turn. Tachyon Lance: Well, if you wanted a reason to stay in the Danger Zone basically forever, here you go. This Superheavy inflicts 2d6 Energy and eight Burn, has a Range of 20, and if you're in the Dangerzone, you also create a Cone 3 in the opposite direction that inflicts Burn, Heat, and creates Soft Cover. This thing is great. As always, remember that Burn inflicts damage immediately, on top of the ongoing damage, so this weapon effectively has +8 loving damage on top of 2d6, and anything that's behind you that doesn't succeed on that Engineering Save takes another 4 damage. God drat. With that, our third mech of the post: The Sunzi, NOT from the core rulebook, instead from the setting book The Long Rim. The Long Rim posted:Sunzi  "It is not enough to know how to walk; you must know where and where not to step; the incorrect spot, and you will be lost." "It's gonna get real loving dark." The Sunzi is a mech that specializes in movement and forced movement. It is a Frame that weaponizes its own space: both realized and conceptual. The Sunzi moves even if it does not move, and it does not move if it does not want to. The Sunzi has the same fairly good defenses as the Sherman, though it's a little faster... Well, a little faster is an understatement. The Sunzi can scoot in ways its base speed of 4 really doesn't get across! A Sensors of 15 and a base Save Target of 11 allow it to keep a watchful eye on most of the battlefield, and allows it to do what the Sunzi does best: Move the various mechs, both allied and enemy, around the battlefield like pieces on a chessboard. Chess is a two-dimensional game. Pieces can only move fore, back, left, and right, but when you lift a piece from the board it is going up. A direction that means nothing in chess. The Sunzi is kind of like that. The mechs move around in a 3D space, and the Sunzi kind of just adds another dimension to things that everyone else doesn't know what to do with. ... it also has a pretty good Tech Attack Bonus for an HA Frame! Anchor keeps the Sunzi from being moved around by others, and Slip gives it a little extra speed, making its effective base speed 6 instead of 4. But the real star of the show is Safe Harbor, which means that any time an ally teleports within a 50-hex radius of the Sunzi, it can end up next to the Sunzi instead. Are they 48 hexes away, and only teleported 1 hex? Doesn't matter, they can be next to the Sunzi instead. The Sunzi also has a single mount: A Main/Aux mount, but it's more of a suggestion than anything else. The Reality Carver is very silly. Not because of its effect (though it's one of the best Core Systems in the game), but I just love the mental image of someone just picking up a dimensional rift, carrying it somewhere, and putting it down. It's some Looney Tunes nonsense. Either way, the Sunzi can deploy rifts that let them reposition enemies and allies to the Blink Anchor's point, letting them both steal enemy teleportation movement AND have another spot they can yank allies to. Even better, though this Core System is Limited 3, it does not expend a charge unless you do this to an enemy! So even when you're out of charges, you can still use this on allies. This gives a lot more flexibility for Safe Harbor, and allows for some strategic repositioning of enemies. Another interesting thing is that when you do this, it's not a Reaction, it just happens, using no actions at all. And the Core Power, once activated, allows you to use a Reaction to teleport allies and enemies alike around whenever they... Exist, basically. You only get six uses of this Reaction, but you can use those six charges to create utter loving mayhem. The possibilities are near endless with this baby! Play a Sunzi if you teleport and then you teleport and then you teleport and then you teleport...   License I Accelerate: This is a little bit hard to explain, so imagine it as the Atlas's zip-line, except it can support more than Size 1/2 and the character that steps in one of the end-spaces doesn't have a choice whether they move or not (well, aside from a Hull Save). It has the added benefit of sweeping a bunch of other stuff along for the ride, which can end in someone suddenly having a lot of currently exploding ordnance at their feet when this effect ends. Blink Charges: The Blink Mine's teleportation effect happens no matter what. Jammed is a great thing to put on an enemy, but teleporting them out of position is more valuable, since if they end up far enough away from you, they might not be able to attack you anyway. The Warp Grenades are pretty decent as well, but they might not have any effect at all, and you DO have a limited amount of this System. License II Blinkspace Tunneler: Another tool to aid teleportation of friends and foes, but this one has the added benefit of being more or less infinite range. Of course, Safe Harbor means that's already true for allies, but it has limited use against enemies unless they WANT to be next to you. Given that you're the Controller/Support of the wing, though, that means you're likely to have a Defender or Striker nearby, and that's not a great position for enemies. Warp Rifle: The only weapon the Sunzi Licenses get, and it's alright, really. It doesn't teleport things very far without bonus damage, but it is a lot more reliable a way of inflicting involuntary teleportation than the Blink Charges, and you can't run out of shots. The fact that it's AP is icing on the cake. Watch that Loading, though, you only get to fire this once every other round under normal conditions. License III Final Secret: And speaking of involuntary teleporting, this baby will do that GALORE. It's great offensively and defensively alike, but keep in mind that unless other circumstances permit, you can only trigger this once a round. Even so, used defensively, it can help protect allies from cumulative blows, which by itself is a mercy that will keep your squishier friends from being shredded by nasty melee mechs, and more rarely, ranged ones. Realspace Breach: Holy moly, this is a trip. This is an incredible defensive tool that can not only deny movement into an area, it more or less prevents AoEs. While the wording seems to imply that this would just make a hole in an AoE large enough to cover the breach, any shot fired into the area will end up wherever the attacker wants in a 10-hex radius around the hole in space-time. This means that you can effectively more than double the range of most weapons (as long as they're not AoEs) and make any Artillery mech in particular incredibly unpredictable. It's very hard to adjust to the fact that at any point, you can be hit from not only practically anywhere on the map, but anywhere from two different origin points. This allows mechs to get around barriers, obstacles, and cover without having line of sight, as long as the HOLE has line of sight. This can make choke points, and DESTROY choke points at the same time. Using it defensively is difficult, but not impossible, and with the right supporting Systems or Techs, you could make entire areas of a battlefield utterly impossible to reach. We'll wrap up with the Tokugawa from the core rulebook, and its Variant Frame, the Enkidu from the mission book No Room For A Wallflower. Both are scorchingly good times. Sometimes not for the pilot, though.  The Tokugawa is imposing again, if not from stature, from its profile. 1 Armor and 8 base HP with a Repair Cap of 4 will keep it in the fight longer than a lot of Strikers... Well, not really, actually. We'll get to that. Combined with a base Evasion of 8, and a base Speed of 4, the Tokugawa has no problem moving around the battlefield and avoiding fire that its HP and Armor can('t) soak, but its poor E-Defense means it's vulnerable to techs. Its Heat Cap helps a bit with that, but a Tokugawa's pilot needs to take care that they're not shut down, sometimes literally. The Tokugawa's main features are its plentiful mounts for lighter weapons, and its border-line suicidal Traits: When the Tokugawa is Exposed (so they take double damage from everything), they get three extra energy damage to all attacks, and convert all damage into energy; and when they're in the Danger Zone, all Energy damage becomes Burn instead. Let's talk about that. This is terrifying, but that goes both ways: The Tokugawa is almost as much of a danger to its pilot as a Manticore! To use one to its maximum effectiveness, any hit could possibly do structure damage, and it's constantly flirting with Reactor Stress too. 1 Armor and 8 HP is strikingly meager in the face of taking double damage from literally everything. Does inflicting Burn with all attacks in huge amounts worth that? Possibly, but you might be better off ignoring Limit Break altogether, and if you're ignoring one of the Frame's main features, what's the point? Can you play a Tokugawa well? Absolutely! But I can also see now why it's considered one of the worst frames in the game. You're playing with fire, pun very much intended, using this mech, and its Variant Frame is IMO more effective at being nightmarish to anything and everything around it with far less risk. At the same time... if you're willing to take that risk, the Tokugawa tears everything to loving shreds. And that's before we get into its Core System, which allows you to Expose your Reactor at will, on purpose. And then makes everything you do have more range and/or more Threat, too. That's not even something you have to use CP for, the downside is that you're loving Exposed. And to up the ante, once you DO use your Core Power, the range of all your weapons rise dramatically. Nothing will be safe from the Tokugawa's Burn when it pops this and uses Overclock, unless the Frame and its pilot become a smoking crater, which is fairly likely. All in all, if you don't overly much care that your pilot survives engagements with any regularity, this is a great alternative to the Manticore... Yet, somehow, packed with MORE suicidal ideation than the literal suicide bomber mech. Play a Tokugawa if the mission is more important than your life.   License I Annihilator: This weapon isn't joking. As far as CQB weapons go, this is one of the better ones, and that's saying something since the CQB class of weapons deliver hit after hit. Literally. In this case, everything around whatever you hit get hit too if you roll well enough, making this quite capable of wrecking Support and Defender pairs. Delivering heat to yourself, like with many HA Frames, is a feature rather than a bug. External Batteries: So, for the low, low price of taking an extra 2-12 damage the first time you take Structure, your energy weapons gain even more range. It doesn't say this DOESN'T stack with Overclock and Radiance, so it totally does. Is that a worth-while buy-in? gently caress it, you're in a Tokugawa anyway, may as well! License II Deep Well Experimental Heat Sink: This system costs 4 SP, which is absurd, but it's resistance to all Heat while in the Danger Zone, where you really need that. Most systems that provide this give Resistance to Heat all the time, which is a detriment to HA Frames. You want this on your Tokugawa at all times as soon as you can even be in a Tokugawa Frame at all, which is not-coincidentally the same LL you get this. It will take up 4/6 of your base SP (though you'll have 7 at least by the time you get this). Hell, put it on almost any HA Frame. Torch:  This... This weapon is... Yea... I'll tell you what this weapon isn't: Unique. Make with that what you will. The Tokugawa is more of a combined-arms Frame, but its Variant will make fine use of... Mostly just this.License III AMATERASU-Class NHP: Get ready to leap before you look! Bonus damage = to your heat is a big deal with an HA Frame, and this goes amazingly on the Sherman as well! Just be aware this NHP may stare at women's chests for prolonged periods of time. Plasma Gauntlet: You can use this once, which is about as many times as you can probably survive it yourself! But if you want something in particular erased, slapping them with this will probably complete that task. And if it doesn't, they're now Prone, so they won't survive what's coming unless they go next. Now, for the Variant Frame, and the final Frame in the HA set: The Enkidu.  While a lack of good Mounts might seem to hold the Enkidu back compared to its successor, the Enkidu does not give a single gently caress about that. It's supposedly a Defender, but it really is not a Defender. It's a Striker, and that's just really not up for debate. With Size 2, it's a big enough target that 1 Armor is more pity mitigation than anything, and its 10 base HP and 5 base Repair Cap is impressive, but doesn't really stack up against other Defenders, much. it does have more E-Defense than most other Defenders, but that barely means anything when it only manages to be Average. The Enkidu, also, has almost no actual Traits to support it being a Defender at all, so I have no idea why that role is applied to it. What the Enkidu does, however, is brutalize anything stupid enough to come anywhere near it, and while it's low in speed, that's very easily remedied in so many ways that it may as well not be. Either way, this Frame hates movement almost as much as the Minotaur, and it's far more violent: The Enkidu is obligated to attack anything that comes near it. That's not a joke, you have to. You do not have a choice. Regalingualius posted:It isn’t forced to attack anyone who enters the area of its attacks, so it’s really on the safer end of area-denial mechs Because it instantly murders any NPC mech under 8 HP unless that NPC has one of three specific templates. That's loving why. Play an Enkidu if you wish to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their significant others.  apologies for the eye-bleed, I could not magic select this image because it contains entirely too much white Next time, we'll start the first of two Homebrew Corpro-States, Intercorp. Who are more than happy to bring their business to you if you don't come to them. Mecha_Face fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Aug 4, 2024 |
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Aug 2, 2024 01:06
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Thank you, Big Sal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPMhU-cgZA
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Aug 2, 2024 01:28
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You might want to check the post again, I put something in just for you. Also: Thank you, Big Sal Mecha_Face fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Aug 2, 2024 |
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Aug 2, 2024 01:32
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Ironically, the irl Tokugawa is known for his slow-and-steady patience and resilience, as he basically won the conflicts to unify Japan by outwitting and outlasting everyone else and avoiding the exuberant haste of certain rivals. And he was a big fan of western armor technology, to the point of wearing full plate on the field and gifting sets of the stuff to his favored retainers. But you can't really expect a rando at HA to know this.
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Aug 2, 2024 01:59
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Really saved the best for last, eh?  Enkidu is by far my favorite frame in the entire game, on just about every level; it's about as close as you can get to Literally Piloting an Evangelion. Hearing about it from my Wallflower GM was the whole reason I ever got into Lancer, just for the chance to see it in action. ...My very first time activating the core power had it kill six NPCs in one turn. And one thing that isn't immediately obvious is that the free boost stacks on top of itself instead of overwriting the last application of it, so you can potentially wind up covering a lot of ground in one turn if you're up against some grunts or mechs softened up by your teammates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=intq3AOMg_U
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Aug 2, 2024 02:00
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A quick heads-up, for those who remember my F&F of Floria: the Verdant Way and Summon Skate,, Silver Vine Publishing has recently started their Kickstarter for the english release of Sparkle Stars, a rules-lite TRPG about not only being heroes in a magical girl/transforming heroes show, but producing your very own magical girl/transforming hero show! Dodge lawsuits, shill toys, be mangled by weird localization choices and win the day through love and friendship! Support this project and you can bet I will be F&F-ing it once I get my hands on a copy.
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Aug 2, 2024 02:58
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Runa posted:Ironically, the irl Tokugawa is known for his slow-and-steady patience and resilience, as he basically won the conflicts to unify Japan by outwitting and outlasting everyone else and avoiding the exuberant haste of certain rivals. And he was a big fan of western armor technology, to the point of wearing full plate on the field and gifting sets of the stuff to his favored retainers. IIRC there was one particular battle where Ieyasu was shot to poo poo basically, but the heavy armor he was wearing carried him through unscratched. The Tokugawa mech is more... I don't know, Takeda Shingen? And thank you, Big Sal. As far as power fantasies go, "gently caress you you don't get to blow up this refugee convoy" is a good one. Funny that it's probably gonna be Union forces doing the protecting from HA goons.
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Aug 2, 2024 03:51
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Regalingualius posted:...My very first time activating the core power had it kill six NPCs in one turn. And one thing that isn't immediately obvious is that the free boost stacks on top of itself instead of overwriting the last application of it, so you can potentially wind up covering a lot of ground in one turn if you're up against some grunts or mechs softened up by your teammates. As a GM, I have a very important piece of advice for anyone who has both a Monarch and an Enkidu in their PC wing: Please make sure large groupings of NPCs are spread out to some extent and not all at or below six hexes from each other, or just two Core Powers can literally wipe almost the entire encounter from the board on round 1. This is in no way personal experience, just common sense. Really. I swear.
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Aug 2, 2024 10:18
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Mecha_Face posted:As a GM, I have a very important piece of advice for anyone who has both a Monarch and an Enkidu in their PC wing: Please make sure large groupings of NPCs are spread out to some extent and not all at or below six hexes from each other, or just two Core Powers can literally wipe almost the entire encounter from the board on round 1. This is in no way personal experience, just common sense. Really. I swear. Spoken with the surety of a 4e dm who just had their first combat with a telepath psion.
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Aug 2, 2024 13:31
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Another fun quirk of the Enkidu: you can actually get rid of the talons for a turn by literally throwing hands. (Though I forget the exact mechanics on how it works with the last line of Hunter 2)Hunter 2 posted:All your Auxiliary melee weapons gain Thrown 5, if they don’t have this property already – if they already have Thrown, it increases to Thrown 5. At the end of your turn, all weapons you have thrown this turn automatically return to you. Plasma Talons posted:AUXILIARY MELEE
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Aug 2, 2024 14:30
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 His Majesty the Worm Chapter 10: The Worm Turns - Gamemastering This is a hodge-podge chapter of everything you need to be a GM of His Majesty the Worm. Up first, two pages of The GM's Manifesto:
as well as a good sidebar on Arbitrating Rules Questions: HMTW posted:What should be done if there is a rules dispute during gameplay? One of the GM's duties is to settle these questions and decide how the rule should be played. If you're still learning the game, you might want to look them up every time until the flow of narrative and mechanics feels natural. If you have the rules down pretty well but encounter a speedbump, we offer this suggestion: decide in favor of the players and look up the rule later. Don't slow down a fun combat with page turning. Just make a temporary rule that is beneficial for the players and ask your best rules lawyer at the table to look it up after the combat is over. The rest of the chapter is then Running the X Phase, with specific advice for each mode of play. Running the Crawl Phase, which weirdly begins with a half page of choosing the right soundscape for your game? I've never seen that before. We get a page of creating interesting characters, to make sure they have Dislikes and Likes, Wants and Needs. We get some advice on easy randomization: use the player's discard pile top card as a suit to pick random adventurers and specific spots in someone's belt. There's a great half-page on a question I probably don't ask enough: What are you holding? Things don't go to hammerspace when you need them to. More advice on questions from the players, like What can I see? and What do I know? With Running the Challenge Phase, we get some guidance on Creating interesting locations - "Challenges should take place somewhere cool". We get a table of Terrain / Sensory Information / Objects to help with that. Then we get advice on Creating interesting battles. This is stuff like "Ganging up on the players" - using the game's mob rules and focus fire rules. A GM is encouraged to Make minor actions as often as possible and to Fight dirty, fight fair. (I'm not sharing all this advice because it's solid if not novel and not part of the rules.) We get half a page of advice on "Create Interesting Antagonists", and a table of surprises you might encounter wandering around the dungeon. The Running the Camp Phase section is just "keep the conversation moving" and then also "50 Campfire Discussions". Running the City Phase is a weird chapter (along with the portion of the book dedicated to building the city). For a game that spends so much effort making it clear the City isn't where the game is, there's a lot of advice on running the game in the city. We're told to make sure we Seed and grow goals: Make sure you give the players lots of things to do in the city that they can care about. We're to Create a path to success, and there's an example about an adventurer who wants to become the most respected mead maker in the city. If your game is about making mead, why are you playing HMTW? And then we get guidance on how to Create obstacles, again using the mead-maker example. There's a section about Completing quests and soft endings which should become the new "What is role playing" - when does this game end? The completion of an adventurer's quest causes the adventurer to either retire or undertake a new quest, and is a natural stopping point to evaluate whether the group wants to continue playing this game in this city (or a different game or still HMTW but in a new city/underworld). There's a page on converting other games (somewhat necessary because of the weird Tarot rules). Then we get the "Appendix N": Inspirational and Educational Reading section. In addition to post-publication event bringing back core inspiration House of Orr (noted above), the other core inspirations are Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui, I Roved Out In Search of Truth and Love by Alexis Flowers (a "warmly pornographic" comic), and Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch. Each of these comes with a paragraph or two of how. There's also a page of movies and books, and then (interestingly) a list of blog posts that have informed the game. And that's it. That's the last chapter! HALF KIDDING. We're only halfway through - this book has 200 pages of appendices! NEXT TIME: Appendix A - Sorcery.
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Aug 2, 2024 15:54
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Regalingualius posted:Another fun quirk of the Enkidu: you can actually get rid of the talons for a turn by literally throwing hands. (Though I forget the exact mechanics on how it works with the last line of Hunter 2) the long mecha tradition of rocket punches
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Aug 2, 2024 15:54
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Regalingualius posted:Another fun quirk of the Enkidu: you can actually get rid of the talons for a turn by literally throwing hands. (Though I forget the exact mechanics on how it works with the last line of Hunter 2) There is, in fact, one of those copy-paste memes that bring this very thing up, including some very funny mental imagery about how the hell it works.
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Aug 2, 2024 17:09
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I AM THE MOON posted:the long mecha tradition of rocket punches Hey, if Ershin can literally launch her fists like rockets in Breath of Fire IV, I think it's pretty reasonable for a mecha to be able to do it.
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Aug 2, 2024 17:21
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Asterite34 posted:A quick heads-up, for those who remember my F&F of Floria: the Verdant Way and Summon Skate,, Silver Vine Publishing has recently started their Kickstarter for the english release of Sparkle Stars, a rules-lite TRPG about not only being heroes in a magical girl/transforming heroes show, but producing your very own magical girl/transforming hero show! Dodge lawsuits, shill toys, be mangled by weird localization choices and win the day through love and friendship! Support this project and you can bet I will be F&F-ing it once I get my hands on a copy. I'd actually totally be willing to provide you with a beta PDF for you to review, though I don't know how to get a hold of you. I don't have PMs on here and I don't know if you're on Discord. If we can figure something out though I will hook you up. I'm always super grateful for the great reviews you've done of Silver Vine stuff.
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Aug 2, 2024 18:32
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I regret to inform everyone that I have found the One Good Lamentations of the Flame Princess book.
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Aug 2, 2024 19:39
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Everyone thinks that. Then it turns out it just has one cool thing, and the rest is the same poo poo.
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Aug 2, 2024 20:18
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I dunno, we might just be in a dark enough timeline for it to finally be true.
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Aug 2, 2024 20:44
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Fivemarks posted:I regret to inform everyone that I have found the One Good Lamentations of the Flame Princess book. Well, you can't just say that and not back it up.
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Aug 2, 2024 22:22
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Getsuya posted:I'd actually totally be willing to provide you with a beta PDF for you to review, though I don't know how to get a hold of you. I don't have PMs on here and I don't know if you're on Discord. If we can figure something out though I will hook you up. I'm always super grateful for the great reviews you've done of Silver Vine stuff. Sweet! I will contact you via discord
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Aug 3, 2024 00:54
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The review of summon skate lead to me buying it and running a full campaign of it, and I just backed sparkle stars after seeing it here, so I think you're a very effective promoter for silver vine
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Aug 3, 2024 00:56
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Because its the ONE GOOD LOTFP BOOK, I should do a review of VEins of the Earth. Pros: holy poo poo this writing is amazing. This is actually a good exploration of the concept of "The fantastical underworld, but not the underdark", without falling into the LOTFP trap of being Boring, hating the players, or just being creepy and weird in a skeevy way. Also the writing is very Disco Elysium, and when I say that I know that elicits groans, but one of the monsters in the Bestiary is "Astronauts from the Sillicon Based Life in the Earth's Core, and they're portrayed and written like First World Tourists in Third World Countries." Its legitimately good writing. Cons: Its Lamentations of the Flame Princess.
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Aug 3, 2024 05:49
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Veins of the Earth is planned to get a non-LotFP reprint, all of Stewart's more recent stuff has been. It's just that Veins hasn't got a reprint yet.
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Aug 3, 2024 05:58
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Terrible Opinions posted:Veins of the Earth is planned to get a non-LotFP reprint, all of Stewart's more recent stuff has been. It's just that Veins hasn't got a reprint yet. Then I feel even less like a traitor for liking it, then.
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Aug 3, 2024 06:36
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Fivemarks posted:Then I feel even less like a traitor for liking it, then. It worked backwards for me, where I came across the genius of Veins of the Earth and figured LotFP had to be great as well! Then I did a little more digging and got very disappointed. Glad to hear it's getting a reprint with something else.
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Aug 4, 2024 00:12
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Veins is pretty cool and doesn't really need LotFP. Granted, beyond the shock art and unpleasant characters behind it there isn't much to LotFP to begin with, just a set of houserules for B/X.
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Aug 4, 2024 00:31
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Deep Carbon Observatory (by the same author as Veins) is probably my all-time favorite OSR adventure.
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Aug 4, 2024 02:02
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I think the deepwell heatsink only gives you resistance against heat damage, so you're still eating double damage from kinetic, energy, explosive sources. But having that extra buffer when your primary weapons are dumping lots of self-inflicted heat on you is very nice. In other great cross-license synergy, the external batteries are just sick on a Monarch. Pair them with Gandiva Missiles and any enemy within 20 range is eating a missile to the e-defense face with no concern for line of sight or cover. Perfect system for a long range artillery mech that's not too likely to be taking fire.
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Aug 4, 2024 17:11
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Yeah, Deepwell doesn't counter Exposed at all. What it does do is make all the Heat-based shenanigans so much more efficient. Shermans love picking up the Tokugawa licenses.
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Aug 4, 2024 18:10
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It also enables a pretty simple yet devastating loop with the Displacer from Napoleon 3 as long as you have 10+ heat cap. Round 1: fire Displacer, do whatever else you want Round 2+: Stabilize to clear heat and reload, then Overcharge to skirmish with it again Even at maximum overcharge level, you only take 5 heat from the Displacer and 5 at most from the overcharge. The only weakness is that if you get reactor stressed by an NPC, you lose the discount because you’ll be starting your next turn outside of the DZ.
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Aug 4, 2024 20:09
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El Spamo posted:I think the deepwell heatsink only gives you resistance against heat damage, so you're still eating double damage from kinetic, energy, explosive sources. But having that extra buffer when your primary weapons are dumping lots of self-inflicted heat on you is very nice. Wow how the hell did I gently caress that up? Eesh.
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Aug 4, 2024 22:50
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 Sparkle Stars Part 1: Make a contract with me and become Magical Girls! Do you like Magical Girl shows in the vein of Sailor Moon, the various Pretty Cure seasons, or Tattoed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills? How about tokusatus shows like the various Super Sentai seasons, Power Rangers, or Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog? Have you ever played a game of Whist and wished it had RPG stats and character progression? Do you want to be in a childrens' television show? Have you ever wanted to produce a childrens' television show? Coming from our old translator friends at Silver Vine Publishing and in the middle of doing a Kickstarter as of this writing, Sparkle Stars is the creative brainchild of the husband-and-wife team of Fujinami Tomoyuki, aka Tokeneko-sensei (who wrote one of the first tabletop replays in Japan, and has worked in RPG development for decades, from NES games to big tabletop companies like FEAR and Adventure Planning Service to offbeat indie projects like this one) and Sasaki Ryo, AKA Shimaneko-sensei (a manga artist who made her name in 4-koma parody strips about Famicom games, and does a lot of game-adjacent work like cover art and card designs and such). This duo has produced a quirky RPG that is in theory "rules-lite," but under the hood is one of the most versatile and customizable toolboxes I have ever seen, all in the service of making a random number generator to simulate the plot structure of monster-of-the-week childrens' action adventure shows. This poo poo has layers, and depending on how you set it up can range from "cute little game for children to act out their favorite cartoons" to "bitingly cynical satire of the intersection of art and capitalism" The intro is the usual "what is an RPG" explanation, with the writing style seemingly geared toward littler kids, while also telling you to just look up this stuff on Youtube if you wanna see the broad concept of roleplaying in action. It also quickly explains that there are three different, but mixable rules at play in this book: Sparkle Rules are basic game rules that seem more geared toward casual play by RPG newcomers and younger players and is most strongly influencd by the "magical girl" anime genre. Despite the name there isn't an actual gender requirement, you can be Cure Wing if you want to. Spark Rules are the slightly more complex rules, mostly in terms of character creation and optional rules, and is more emulating Tokusatsu shows like Power Rangers or other slightly more little-boy-oriented shows with giant combining robots. Interestingly, the wall between these two rulesets is incedibly porous (because frankly every magical girl show in the style of Sailor Moon and its conceptual decendants are basically "color-coded sentai team fighting monsters" anyway, just marketed for girls), and since they both use the same stats and resolution mechanics, can be freely intermingled, such that you can legit have characters based on these rules participate in the same game session without issue, or borrow rules from one kind of game for another. You can in fact have Kamen Rider, Lyrical Nanoha, Ultraman and Cardcaptor Sakura team up to fight the Negaverse and it all just works without appreciable mechanical friction. Star Rules is where things get weird. The above rules are more oriented around genre emulation and immersion in the conventions of the show. The Star Rules are the extra-difficulty advanced rules that break kayfabe and acknowledge the reality of actually making a TV show, where now you have to contend with out-of-universe creative pressures you have to work around. We'll get to those in their own time, but suffice it to say they give a very different experience, where what used to be a sort of guided improv exercise suddenly turns into loving Pandemic. After this is a list of various defined terms that do that thing where some of them are obvious to anyone whose ever played a game (like what a face card or a Joker are) to terms that are going to be totally opaque until they get explained in context later. But whatever, this is just words to keep in the back of your mind until they come up again~ After all this, we finally get to the Table of Contents. Well actually we have two of those, the standard ToC and a page devoted solely to indexing all the Charts and Random Tables. The game utilizes a standard 52 deck of cards (plus Jokers) for all its mechanics, and it REALLY utilizes it to allow random generation of basically anything you feel like leaving up to chance. In a lot of cases they aren't even strictly necessary, they're just there for the fun of it, and that's a commitment to the bit I can appreciate. Next part: Creating a character, wearing your creative influences on your sleeve, and finding out how many different things can have "Heart" in their name Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Aug 5, 2024 |
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Aug 5, 2024 03:34
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Asterite34 posted:finding out how many different things can have "Heart" in their name 
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Aug 5, 2024 04:23
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Humbly asking for Cure Monarch, fighting evil in the name of love, justice, and entirely too many SSC-30 High Penetration Missile System warheads for full battlefield coverage
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Aug 5, 2024 18:02
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Add the stabilizer mod for another +5 range and the siege stabilizers from Barbarossa for another +5 range. Now we have 30 hexes of missile saturation.
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Aug 5, 2024 18:30
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Traveller posted:Humbly asking for Cure Monarch, fighting evil in the name of love, justice, and entirely too many SSC-30 High Penetration Missile System warheads for full battlefield coverage Shh shh shh they're not 'Cures' they're 'Sparkles'. We spent so long scrubbing all the 'Cures' and 'Rangers' from the original Japanese...
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Aug 5, 2024 18:49
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also the Horus Rangers, if we're gonna crib from lancer some more. RA is Zordon.
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Aug 5, 2024 19:16
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Getsuya posted:Shh shh shh they're not 'Cures' they're 'Sparkles'. It's fine, the Sparkle Monarch can use the CU-R3 Missile system.
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Aug 5, 2024 19:35
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Oddly, putting giant mechs in this one wouldn't be too odd. Before it was a magical girl/tokusatsu system it was actually conceived as a way to make your own episodes of Evangelion. In his own words, the author said he became obsessed with Eva in 1996 and created a system to emulate the feelings of the writer, animators and fans watching it to try to unpack the emotions of the last episode. ... and somewhere along the way he thought that system would be perfect to turn into a HeartCatch PreCure fangame.
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Aug 5, 2024 19:56
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