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I've always had a bit of an issue with jacks in the tabletop version because their stat allotment adds up to 36 points instead of 34 like the other If I remember right, I think this game came out around the same time Character Options 2 did, which introduced two new character types: the glint, who was responsible for spreading hearsay, conjecture, white lies, rumors, half-truths, and the occasional true story across the Ninth World; and the delve, which was pretty much a fighting exoarchaeologist. (The current edition of the game also has the wright, who's pretty much an alchemist, except they make numenera from busted pieces of numenera.) I've been meaning to play this again, so I guess it's too late to steer the vote towards "The Last Castoff is a female Rugged Glaive who Has No Focus?" When it comes to training skills, I was a bit pissed off when I trained in Heavy Weapons. If the wiki's right, there's exactly one heavy weapon in the entire game. I went with trained in Melee Weapons instead, because given the choice between "15% better with one and only one weapon" vs. "15% better with every single melee weapon in the game," it's a no-brainer.
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Dec 6, 2019 17:25
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agradine posted:Can you choose to not have a focus? Every character in Numenera gets a Focus; I just put "Has No Focus" in because, well, we don't have one yet. You choose the Focus later. (I am disappointed "who Needs No Weapon" is not available as a Focus.)
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Dec 6, 2019 19:33
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I'm giving it a chance because I like the pen and paper version. (Speaking of which, there's a small expansion based on the game available that has mechanics for the Tides.) Editing to add that, interestingly, there's a picture of the female Last Castoff in the expansion, but not a male Last Castoff picture.
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Dec 9, 2019 04:54
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Oh, poo poo, that's right. We have a vote. Let's go with Aligern; who better to help us deal with a Changing God than his own drat Cult? :v
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Dec 9, 2019 05:53
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Aligern's tattoos might be on his character model; it's hard to tell because one of his equipment pieces is covering his forearms.
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Dec 9, 2019 08:19
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Jacks are/aren't spellcasters; they do a little bit of everything, to the point where most of their abilities in the pen and paper game are taken directly from either the glaive or nano lists. The two Character Options books, as well as the new edition (Numenera: Discovery) were a little better about that and made them more like rogues, assassins, speedsters, and tricksters, to the point where one of the last abilities a jack can pick lets them summon Alternate Universe You to help out in combat for one minute. Meanwhile, late-game nanos in Discovery can control weather, literally move mountains, and travel to alternate universes, while the glaive... gets better at killing people, to the point where one of the last abilities they can get is "if you hit an opponent, make another attack roll. If you hit them again, your opponent dies on the spot." (Which I'm kinda fine with, but this is coming from someone whose favorite D&D class is the fighter, anyway.) (In other words, jacks in Torment don't get Scan Thoughts.)
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Dec 10, 2019 03:39
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"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'yes!'" Also, "drit" is not a typo in the game, it's Ninth World slang. (It's a portmanteau of "dirt" and "grit.")
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Dec 11, 2019 16:02
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GreatEvilKing, would it be cool if I talked about chargen in Numenera (specifically Tides of Numenera) or did you want to talk about that later?
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Dec 13, 2019 08:47
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Go for it! To be honest, I didn't really have a whole lot at the moment to talk about regarding the entirety of character creation-- we all know how Might, Speed, and Intellect work, we know our character For every point we invest in Might, we gain 1 Health. I shouldn't have to explain what Health is. (I should mention that, like any good Baldur's Gate-inspired RPG, if YOU run out of Health, you die. If your party members run out of Health, they instead get beaten into unconsciousness and automatically revive once the party's out of danger. Thanks, guys.) For every 2 points we invest in Speed, our Evasion increases by 5% (because the main die used in Numenera for task rolls is a d20.) Evasion helps us avoid Physical attacks. For every 2 points we invest in Intellect, our Willpower increases by 5%. Willpower helps us avoid and resist non-physical attacks. (Note the lowercase P here.) Skills have four tiers of proficiency, which our descriptor, our choices in character creation and advancement, and certain pieces of gear can increase. By default, we're practiced in most things. We take no penalties to task rolls, we gain no bonuses. Inability in a skill (the red dot next to our skill) means we take a -15% penalty to rolls involving that skill. Because we're jacks, we have inability with Heavy Weapons. No surprises there, you want to get your Cloud Strife on and swing a huge-rear end greatsword, you should have been a glaive. Trained in a skill (the teal dot next to our skill) means we gain a +15% bonus to rolls involving that skill. (In case you're wondering, "Melee Weapons" and "Ranged Weapons" are skills in this game, as are the weapon weight categories "Light Weapons," "Medium Weapons," and "Heavy Weapons.") Specialized in a skill (two teal dots next to our skill) means we gain a total +30% bonus to rolls involving that skill. If you're smart enough to become specialized in Light Weapons, you're better at this game than I am-- every light weapon in Numenera has an inherent +15% bonus to attack rolls. (Why, yes, it's entirely possible to get an light weapon attack roll completely 100% accurate! Who the hell cares if your base damage is 2 Physical at this point? That's still "2 damage, no attack roll required," and you can boost the damage with Effort.) --- I should also point out that, instead of bonuses/penalties to skill checks, some of the skills directly affect the Last Castoff's capabilities. Initiative: If you have inability in Initiative, you're probably going to go last every combat round. If you're trained or specialized, you're usually going first (or near-first.) Running: Inability in Running penalizes your movement speed in combat (the purple line that shows you how far you can move.) Training and specialization increase your movement speed. Healing: You heal an additional +5 Health when using items or abilities to heal if you're trained in Healing, and a total +10 Health if you're specialized. If you have inability in Healing, anyone benefiting from your healing abilities/items gets a -2 penalty to the recovered Health. Concentration: If we have inability in Concentration, one of the equipment slots for Bonded Items is grayed out. (Bonded Items give us a boost to one ability, in exchange for a penalty to another.) If we're trained in this, we ignore the penalty from one Bonded Item (the one on the left in the character sheet.) If we're specialized, we ignore the penalties from both Bonded Items. Endurance: Similar to the Healing bonuses/penalties, except these affect our maximum Health. Cypher Use: Inability here reduces how many cyphers (one-time-use The key word here is "safely." By default, glaives and jacks can equip two cyphers (nanos can equip three, lucky bastards.) Those are the teal-bordered circles on our character sheet. Equipping more (in the orange-bordered circles) gives us the Cypher Sickness status effect, reducing our Might by -2, plus an additional -1 Might, Speed, and Intellect for every additional cypher equipped. If we equip more than six additional cyphers, every cypher the Last Castoff is carrying explodes, killing her instantly. This is an achievement. --- The last thing I want to talk about is damage. Just like D&D and other RPGs, there's several damage types that'll come into play (assuming we don't dodge out of combat.) Physical damage is exactly that: Punching someone, knifing them, cutting them with a verred (a forked two-bladed sword) or bashing them with a mace. Physical damage is reduced by Armor. Energy damage is damage like fire, electricity, and so on. Characters who take Energy damage are pushed back a small distance. This is reduced by Resistance. Chemical damage is damage from acid, alkali, and other corrosive substances. This does damage over time, and is also reduced by Resistance. Transdimensional damage is damage through other dimensions (...I got nothin' on this one.) Transdimensional damage cripples its target, temporarily lowering their Evasion and movement speed. (Also reduced by Resistance.) Callistege's Onslaught esotery is permanently locked into inflicting Transdimensional damage. Mental damage is damage done directly to a target's brain and nervous system. Fun stuff. Mental damage dazes its target, temporarily penalizing skill checks and Speed. (And it's reduced by Resistance.) Finally, Relativistic damage is loving terrifying. It's not reduced by armor or heroic resistance at all.
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Dec 14, 2019 06:38
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I dunno, if it were me I would have just renamed Chemical, Transdimensional, and Relativistic to Corrosive, Ethereal, and Unstoppable. I don't even think that was Monte-- the pen and paper game just uses "is reduced by Armor" and "is not reduced by Armor" when it comes to how much damage you're about to take.
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Dec 14, 2019 16:00
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Hypocrisy posted:Does this mean as you spend your Might on Effort you lower your HP? In the pen and paper version, yes. You didn't have a Health stat, so your Might/Speed/Intellect pools served as your health and mana. Most damage from combat drains your Might first, then Speed, then Intellect, but other abilities might target Intellect or Speed first. Some of your powers cost M/S/I to use, but you have a stat called Edge that reduces that cost-- Aggression, an ongoing power that lets the glaive be more accurate with melee attacks in exchange for making melee and ranged defense rolls harder, usually costs 2 Might to activate, but this cost is reduced to 1 Might straight out of character creation, for example. Edge also applies to Effort, which is spending your pools to make an associated task easier, or doing +3 damage per Effort spent during combat. In my last post, I mentioned, theoretically, a glaive can make a ranged weapon attack 100% reliable thanks to light weapons being easier to attack with and specializing with light weapons. (Does this mean you can spend Effort to increase damage, even though at this point you need to roll above a zero on a d20? The book and the subreddit are a bit mum, but hell, if I were GMing for you, I'd allow it!) Because you do have a Health stat in Tides of Numenera, you don't have to worry about straining yourself thanks to using your abilities. Spending Might to power glaive abilities doesn't reduce your maximum Health, so feel free to Effort away. If it matters, your base stats in Tides of Numenera are: Before Character Creation: 5 Might, 5 Speed, 5 Intellect, 20 Health Glaive: 6 Might, 6 Speed, 5 Intellect, +2 stat points to distribute, 35 Health (+10 per additional Tier after first) Jack: 5 Might, 5 Speed, 5 Intellect, +4 stat points to distribute, 30 Health (+7 per additional Tier after first) Nano: 5 Might, 5 Speed, 7 Intellect, +2 stat points to distribute, 25 Health (+5 per additional Tier after first) Inability in Endurance: -2 Health Practiced in Endurance: +0 Health Trained in Endurance: +5 Health Specialized in Endurance: +10 Health
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Dec 15, 2019 22:49
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The Last Castoff is a Clever Jack who Breathes Shadow. Primarily because sneak attacking is fun (and might end combats faster!) But mostly because the second and third-tier Breathes Shadow abilities let us do Relativistic damage.
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Dec 16, 2019 03:09
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Of all the things to limit, though, why Foci? There's all kinds of awesome options in Discovery and Destiny that would be awesome-- hell, I've seen someone pull off "is a Swift Nano who Needs No Weapons," which gives one scarily-effective Instead, we're limited to "I speak bullshit," "I'm adept at the victimless crime of stabbing people in the dark," and... ...okay, Masters Defense is in Discovery, but that's more about "I'm trained out the rear end in defense tasks, and I have a shield so I'm better at defense tasks, have fun trying to hit me." What I'm saying is this game could have used Foci like "Fuses Flesh and Steel," "Works Back Alleys," "Explores Dark Places," "Masters Weaponry," "Focuses Mind Over Matter," or hell, stuff like "Acts Without Consequence," "Never Says Die," "Radiates Vitality," or even "Wields Words Like Weapons."
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Dec 17, 2019 02:08
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 Sure, let's go buy a forged badge of office of dubious quality from a black market merchant, then go impersonate a justicar into giving us an old stay of execution writ, that we're going to cross out "Col Cardin" and write "Ris" on, and then show it to the executioner and say "Yes sir, everything's all hunky-dory, nothing underhanded going on here, no need to check into this writ, let this man go!" Oh, and fingers crossed on nobody recognizing the unique tattoo ON MY FACE that calls me out as having once been a vessel of the Changing God! What could possibly go wrong?! See? Already our minds are becoming one!
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Dec 23, 2019 16:10
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I think the dialogue means "he has a set of teeth behind his regular teeth."
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May 13, 2020 23:15
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So this whole quest was just a bunch of bullshit? Urgh. Now I feel like I gotta take my anger out on something. Like the Sorrow. Give it a one-sided masochistic rear end-beating for the ages, Castoff.
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May 25, 2020 08:16
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EricFate posted:There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five player characters tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that The Sorrow is on the side track. You have one option... My choice is "deltree D:\Games\inXile Entertainment\Torment - Tides of Numenera\*". Is that a choice?
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May 25, 2020 21:36
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Does the nano at least get to try to talk the Sorrow to death through dialogue choices, or do you cutscene kill it like the glaive?
Snorb fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jun 6, 2022 |
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Jun 6, 2022 17:31
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