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Well, what I meant was I'd suggest we split the group into two games, not play the same kind of encounters out in 4e. I must have sounded really stupid, sorry 
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May 9, 2012 16:26
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Nah I think that was largely us speculating how it would go. But splitting the group is definitely a great idea, I mean 12 people come on.
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May 9, 2012 17:19
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My Lovely Horse posted:Nah I think that was largely us speculating how it would go. But splitting the group is definitely a great idea, I mean 12 people come on. Plus, you get to help the DM avoid the infamous "DM Burnout", play a game that makes more sense to you, help newbies get into the game (4E is pretty good at that, I must say)... the list of benefits to you and the group are numerous and go beyond merely cutting down time spent in combat. Since you have newbies though, I suggest you also try to start up a game of Paranoia - where the combat is as long as it takes for you to stop laughing (or the party manages to inadvertently destroy itself on purpose). It doesn't matter if nobody knows how to play the game. In fact, it's better than nobody (save for the GM) even knows how the game works beyond its initial premise.
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May 9, 2012 19:15
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Don't give out more than 6 grenades per group in paranoia. Some unlucky dude will manage to eat all of'em.
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May 9, 2012 20:10
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pw pw pw posted:Man, I love it when someone has such a poor idea of the game mechanics as to strongly desire real estate in dungeons and dragons. Genuinely, it's just the most lovably retarded thing. What a god forsaken idiot, bless his little heart. On the one hand, they were going through the Temple of Elemental Evil, and having a base they could fall back to without trekking back to town would be decently handy. On the other hand, they were going through the Temple of Elemental Evil. If you happen to be in a game where a fort will be a necessary part of things, real estate can be a decent investment. Of course, it's still possible to go about things in a completely rear end-backwards way. For instance, my party had just cleared out a temple full of bad guys, accessed the sealed treasure room, and kickstarted the plot by getting labeled the Stars of Destiny. Yes, just like Suikoden. My character, being a very social and legally-minded person, decided to put some effort into finding out who had owned the place previously, and what it would take to transfer ownership. This would have been all fine and good, except we were in the middle of a nation whose power groups consisted entirely of barbarian tribes and a few hidden fortresses full of ninjas. The local chieftain's response was basically "Well, you're there now, we'll call it yours."
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May 9, 2012 21:00
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Dareon posted:The local chieftain's response was basically "Well, you're there now, we'll call it yours." The Morrowind school of property law.
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May 9, 2012 21:47
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12 players just sounds like it's too much logistically. If every one took at least a minute per round, it's 12 minutes at best until it's your turn again. Now imagine if someone has a question, or takes more than a minute to play or so on. Can you imagine only having a turn 3 or four times in an hour? That would be tiring.
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May 10, 2012 07:15
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Vander posted:Can you imagine only having a turn 3 or four times in an hour? That would be tiring.
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May 10, 2012 08:22
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3-4 turns an hour would be amazingly fast with a 12 person group. It's pretty much impossible to keep that many people intently focused on the game session, and in my experience the length of time it takes to resolve a turn usually increases with the number of players, so the idea that everybody is going to resolve their turn in less than a minute and a half seems grossly optimistic. Even if you actually had 12 players who were focused and committed enough to make that happen, you'd still be better off splitting into smaller groups. LGD fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 08:37
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pw pw pw posted:Man, I love it when someone has such a poor idea of the game mechanics as to strongly desire real estate in dungeons and dragons. Genuinely, it's just the most lovably retarded thing. What a god forsaken idiot, bless his little heart. We are playing an updated version of Keep on the Borderlands and after defending the keep versus a bunch of troglodytes pouring out of the Underdark, we were given titles and land. I bought everyone else's land and I'm currently building a fortress at the mouth of the cave that leads down to the Underdark. To the common folk, it appears that I will be a bastion of defense against the scourge that lies below. Above the board, everyone knows I'm just using it as a toll booth and if the Drow/anything else want to come up on this side of the mountain, they gots to pay the toll. I was also going to make a pact with a lich of my Mage Guild who lives down below to help him keep an eye on the comings and goings of any would-be problems. Too bad the last game literally started with "you're travelling through an Underdark steam vent, when SUDDENLY...YOU'RE IN RAVENLOFT!"
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May 10, 2012 14:22
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:We are playing an updated version of Keep on the Borderlands and after defending the keep versus a bunch of troglodytes pouring out of the Underdark, we were given titles and land. I bought everyone else's land and I'm currently building a fortress at the mouth of the cave that leads down to the Underdark. A similar thing happened when I ran Hackmaster's Little Keep On The Borderlands. The party started by "claiming" a small dungeon and using it as a base (they registered it with the Adventurer's Guild so other heroes couldn't butt in, and then were granted a title by the Commander of the Keep). They ended up doing much the same thing with every other dungeon bit they conquered. They'd staff the places with men-at-arms and administrators, and reap the rewards of owning newly-defended farmland and roads. The whole time, they were involved in the fake gold piece conspiracy instead of stopping it, and were shipping large amounts of the counterfeit currency back to the capital in merchant's caravans. While doing that with one hand, they were also forging an alliance with the bugbears and hobgoblins in the Caves Of Chaos. When the new Commander of the Keep found out about the gold conspiracy, they simply activated Plan B and besieged the keep with the evil humanoids, then turned on them when they were weak, and declared themselves the Saviors Of Frandor's Keep when it appeared that they showed up just in time to Save The Day but unfortunately not quite in time to save anyone who knew anything about the fake gold (they were sneaking round and murdering everyone who knew their secret. In the end, they had over 2.5 million gp and massive amounts of real estate including the Keep. Sorry about the spoilers, I really don't want to ruin it for anyone that hasn't played. This is the same group of players, and the same campaign, where they acquired over 1 million gp at level 2 by ignoring a dungeon in favor of transporting acid from a Mysterious Pool Of Acid back to a major city for sale to thieves and alchemists. That acid was worth 1000x it's weight in gold, and goddamn did they work hard for it. I understand that this sort of thing would be a terrible experience for many people, but it was almost a reenactment of the older KODT comics, and it was an awesome 2 year long game. When a character falls in an acid pool and gets dissolved, and the player just leafs through the book and goes "acid's worth a fuckload guys, you should probably take this instead of whatever lovely loot is in the rest of this place", you know you're playing that game and you can either walk away or roll with it and have a blast.
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May 10, 2012 15:27
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Here To Help posted:"Idiot complaining about healers not healing well" Honestly I think combat healing shouldn't even be a thing anymore. Every time someone plays the healer (at least from what I've experienced) that person is expected to be functioning at 100% all the time, take the optimum healing perks, always be attentive so no one is in danger, forsake interesting combat actions in order to help the party, etc while everyone else gets to gently caress around, do "hilariously" wacky stuff, high five about huge damage, or whatever. Also everyone knows exactly how to play a healer as they tell the healer how to play his or her role constantly but for some reason none of them want to do it. It must be much more fun to imagine yourself healing. I was recently in a failed 4e group where I was the bard healer. I would constantly get complaints that I was spending too much time fighting (I was a valorous Bard so I was speced to hit stuff) and not enough time healing everyone else. Basically they were complaining that I wasn't paying enough attention when they were getting low on HP even though they apparently weren't paying enough attention themselves to tell me that they needed it. So rather than have to spend the entire game looking at everyone else's sheets (I spent a session literally asking every turn if someone needed healing since I got bitched at when I missed someone) I said "fine" respeced the character to take advantage of the Skald healing method where basically I get the same amount of heals but players use their minor actions to heal themselves in their own turn. That's in addition to encounter and daily heals I provide on my own. Of course after one session I got "This sucks because now we can't use our minor actions for our OWN stuff  " and was a HUGE inconvenience but no one really had a good answer why when asked (I think one wanted to use an encounter minor or something and if that happened to be on the exact turn he needed to heal the world would end). After that I just passive aggressively did whatever the gently caress I wanted and just stopped caring. People stopped going shortly after anyway.
Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 16:33 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 16:17
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Radish posted:Honestly I think combat healing shouldn't even be a thing anymore. Every time someone plays the healer (at least from what I've experienced) that person is expected to be functioning at 100% all the time, take the optimum healing perks, always be attentive so no one is in danger, forsake interesting combat actions in order to help the party, etc while everyone else gets to gently caress around, do "hilariously" wacky stuff, high five about huge damage, or whatever. Also everyone knows exactly how to play a healer as they tell the healer how to play his or her role constantly but for some reason none of them want to do it. It must be much more fun to imagine yourself healing. This has always been a pet peeve of mine, although I very rarely play a healer for just that reason, and it gives me an idea for the (3.5, although I imagine the same concept will work for just about any system) dungeon I'm about to run. Healing is traumatic. Ever read WoT? Something like that. You get healed by a spell, you lose your turn, and your Dex bonus, as you thrash around. I'll have potions be the emergency heal because I don't want to gently caress with the mechanics of combat too much and I don't like killing players, but this should encourage less healing during fights, and for the big fights it'll add a new tactical element as you're forced to try to create a front to protect anyone getting fixed up. It'll force people the people who want the heals to make the same choice the healer has to make. Potions should be relatively self-limiting, since you have to either pay with gold or XP, and worst case, it's not loving over one person so everyone else can have fun. I'll need to be careful with balancing to begin with, but I'm considering making it even more restrictive, like if you get healed you're out of the fight for multiple rounds to really make in-combat healing by a single person not a thing. Thoughts?
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May 10, 2012 17:38
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If you're not playing a d20 numbers game, healers can work pretty well. The Angel in Apocalypse World is about as essential as you would imagine a doctor is in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. I recently started up a game, and I encouraged a new player to choose the healer-type, simply because of reactive nature of such classes. She seems to like it, but mentioned she might try switching to a new class, simply because of how passive it is.
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May 10, 2012 17:43
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Radish posted:Honestly I think combat healing shouldn't even be a thing anymore. Every time someone plays the healer (at least from what I've experienced) that person is expected to be functioning at 100% all the time, take the optimum healing perks, always be attentive so no one is in danger, forsake interesting combat actions in order to help the party, etc while everyone else gets to gently caress around, do "hilariously" wacky stuff, high five about huge damage, or whatever. Also everyone knows exactly how to play a healer as they tell the healer how to play his or her role constantly but for some reason none of them want to do it. It must be much more fun to imagine yourself healing. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 17:48 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 17:44
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Over the previous four weeks, I had been running a play-test of a boss battle for my D&D Encounters players. On the first round, after rolling initiative, an effectively Colossal Construct, similar to a Warforged but of a body made in a Dwarven architectural style, crash-landed atop the portion of the city they are in. It had four legs, each of Huge size, and would start to move around, lifting up no more than two legs at a time, where it needed to move the leg up four squares (of its six move) on one turn, and the next move it any distance it was moving and put it down, with a lovely Burst attack attempting to crush anyone beneath the massive column at the time. (Reflex attack to keep them from dodging, attack vs. AC to see if they could take half damage.) No boss battle is complete without obvious weak points, so glowing arcane spheres were on each leg; two each on the north and west, north and east, south and west, and south and east. North spheres were red, east green, south yellow, and west blue. Some sort of shielding magic on the spheres made them more difficult to hit, aside from targeting a specific defense (the difference was about 4 lower on the weak defense). These weaknesses were able to be determined via trial and error (where some of the information was understood), or by two checks: an Arcana to remember that these elements were encountered in a similar form 200 years in the past and that a children's rhyme was written to address and pass down the knowledge (medium-hard DC), and a History check (hard DC, easy if previous check passed) to recall it. Destroying a sphere caused the gases inside the sphere to explode outward, catching anyone nearby (close burst 1). The attacks, as a hint, were made against a specific defense of theirs, corresponding to the weakness of the sphere, with terrible effects if they hit, always knocking them prone, with the icy cold vapors slowing, the fiery embers causing ongoing fire, the dusty gusts blinding, and the intense winds immobilizing (save ends) anyone hit by it. The legs stomping weren't the only threatening things this construct had. Other than each of its legs having a turn, its body could project clearly visible Ghost Image “targeting reticules” on the ground. Creatures entering or remaining within the three by three area suffered no ill effects, but any creature leaving it triggered an attack against everyone within the area (a volley of longbow bolts from the body), causing the area to then vanish. In addition to this, two temporal effects were going on. The first was that everyone was sent back in time, to full health (including the walker), with all surges, encounters, dailies, and action points (of 1) restored. The second was that the area usually grew more dwarven in architecture. The group, separating to keep the walker occupied while scouting out the massive map (made out of about three old Encounters maps put together), learned that a wizard was responsible for the first; in fact, he had been casting the spell every fifteen seconds (three rounds). The group playtesting this had been tackling this with Lair Assault-rules (for Lv.4) character made, specifically min-maxed, though with little interparty cooperation on who would do what. They were unable to resolve the issue of defeating the walker, stopping the wizard, trying to kill him when they got to the other side of the map to where he was. The party consisted of three tester and two other players, all around one level lower than this encounter was tested at. The testers panicked a bit when they realized I wasn't putting away the testing map for tonight's encounter. However, the other two players provided valuable insight into the circumstances, managing to keep the testers from trying to kill the wizard, to Diplomacy and other things, to learn what was going on, even as they were originally flung out of the portal they came in through, about 30 feet above the ground. (One of the non-tester players was glad for their Featherfall medallion.) From the wizard, they also learned that the walker was the cause of the other effect, trying to draw the adventurers into a timeline where the city sat at the capital of a large warforged empire. He had a spell to escape from it, but it could only affect the caster, not the party. He had been recasting the spell all this time specifically because he wanted to save the city he grew up in from destruction by the walker. The problem was, the only time-related spells he knew that could affect a large enough area were in Elven. Which was a language he didn't speak, and was just hodgepodging the spell together from things he had learned from some of his scholars in Wizard School. The youngest member of our group was a magic-user with very high Arcana, who DID speak Elven. Two others in the party Diplomacied the wizard into delaying his spell for just a bit longer, part of the party trying to destroy spheres without the time-rewind to reset their progress. However, without the wizard casting the spell, multiple timelines started to cascade into each other, as a black rift, impossible to see into, soon after started to open in the middle of the trading district. Dwarves looked very confused to see the construct, as well as the players attacking something obviously dwarven, in what was their long-established military barracks. A purple worm and a Dragonborn ended up drawn into the next crashing-together of timelines, distracting the Dwarves into trying to take it down while the party could return focus to the walker. All the while, each round, the rift expanded. First, the side of the square was 2 squares long. Then 6. Then 10. The party realized if they didn't do something quickly, it would envelope everyone present. One of the party members starts dying in the attempt to escort the player's wizard to the other wizard to do the spell correctly. Everyone else managed to get far enough away from the still-expanding rift, but he was drawn in, as was the colossal walker. I had briefly removed him from the map, until it was his turn in initiative. Putting him back, I said that from where he was, time was “broken”. No time would pass at all, as in he didn't need to make death-saving-throws, but effectively, he and the walker were out of the combat. The next cascade brought in two Large Warforged who were hostile to the party, the turn after a Huge Warforged, into the room right next door to the wizard. Its hammer pounded at one of the defenders, its axe cleaving through the door to another. It was too large to fit through the door, but it looked like it would cut its way in, regardless. Finally, the party wizard was able to eventually analyze and correct the spell to using proper Elven grammar. He had been casting it as he was making the changes to the spell. Due to his unfamiliarity with it, though, he could only focus on doing one portion perfectly, one well, and one okay. There were of time, the healing effect of the spell, and the spell radius, listed in the order he chose to allot his focus to. He made a d20 Arcana check for the time portion to go off correctly, though he flubbed a word, and set it to months rather than years as he intended. No biggie, given that anything larger than minutes would give them more than enough time. Next, the d12 healing effect went off almost perfectly, They would be at the same degree of restoration as where they were from each of the time loops. Last, was the spell radius. I told him to roll a d10. The party looked concerned. Their fallen member, they were pretty sure, was not within the maximum spell radius. Some of them were closer than others. They hoped for a high roll. It came up a 9, gathering all of them into it, aside from the fallen party member. Last, he had to roll a d6, to see if he could keep the hostile creatures out from being transported back with them. A 5 was more than fine at this. (Really, as long as it wasn't a 1.) The party was pulled back three months in time, back to before the Encounters campaign occurred. Stronger, better equipped, and overall aware of what was happening, they were able to defeat the cult responsible for spreading the plague. As of the fallen member? Managing to stabilize, he saw what happened within the rift. As time began to flow once more, thousands of timelines, walkers, adventurers, warforged, and dwarves engaged in transparent, overlapping iterations. Many times, the walker was defeated. Many more, it had not. As the structure of time wove itself back together out of the cacophony, it was resolved that his character had met up with the playtest group's characters, who had survived the walker encounter on their own, without the wizard to send them all back in time. (This worked out great for the one player, who actually had his Encounters character as background history of a home campaign that the playtesting characters belonged to.) The day, the town, the casting wizard, and time itself were saved, thanks to our youngest player. The smile on his face at his accomplishment will be one I remember for a long time, through my gaming experiences. Everyone at the table loved the ending, compared to what was overall, before that point, considered to be a terrible Encounters series. The other DMs had written their own endings, because none of us could agree how it should end, had great ideas for such, but ones that matched our (and our tables)'s playstyles.
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May 10, 2012 17:46
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Lorak posted:story While it looks good somewhat afterwards I would not have wanted to be a player in that encounter as even reading the boss battle was completely confusing and that's when it was explained. I couldn't imagine how confusing it would be playing or running it.
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May 10, 2012 17:51
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MadScientistWorking posted:That sounds more like player problems more than mechanics problems. I think it's a little of both. Combat healing is so incredibly passive (it's hard to get excited when all you you are doing is making sure your party is treading water) that it's hard to really get invested. Add in people that really just want someone to facilitate their own play-style at the expense of that person's fun and it's never a great time. The idea of making healing painful and something the person getting healed has to take part in sounds kinda cool.
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May 10, 2012 18:39
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Radish posted:I think it's a little of both. Combat healing is so incredibly passive (it's hard to get excited when all you you are doing is making sure your party is treading water) that it's hard to really get invested.
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May 10, 2012 18:49
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MadScientistWorking posted:The Bard is the least passive healer in 4th edition. I don't think any Leader except for the Lazylord can be described as 'passive'. Lazylord is, consequently, the least fun way to play a Warlord.
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May 10, 2012 18:54
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Hamboning posted:I don't think any Leader except for the Lazylord can be described as 'passive'.
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May 10, 2012 19:33
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Radish posted:The idea of making healing painful and something the person getting healed has to take part in sounds kinda cool. In my group we had a house rule that when you get healed, all of the pain you would have experienced from it as the wound healed naturally was compressed into the moment of magical healing. We played Rolemaster primarily so there were pretty explicit crits being dished out and received (broken limbs, torn ligaments, nerve damage, etc) whose healing could get kinda nasty with the Big Heal spells. (Imagine all of the pain from a sprained ankle you experience over time. Now compress that into a thirty second round.) Of course it was magical healing, so there wasn't a real impact, but from a role playing perspective a character always took a moment to gather themselves and prepare for the incoming heal spell. "Um, this is going to hurt. A lot. Sorry."
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May 10, 2012 19:36
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Hamboning posted:I don't think any Leader except for the Lazylord can be described as 'passive'. Look at this dumb guy. Lazylords are the most fun warlords, because your weapon is the barbarian.
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May 10, 2012 22:16
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Piell posted:Look at this dumb guy. Lazylords are the most fun warlords, because your weapon is the barbarian. Seconded. It's even fun for the barbarian, as he gets to do twice as much smashing. Oh, and you get to recline in your deckchair with a diaquiri and a megaphone while the battlefield rages about you.
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May 10, 2012 22:25
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Hamboning posted:I don't think any Leader except for the Lazylord can be described as 'passive'. It's the best way to build a "useless" DMPC though. You know, the inept hero, or the guy you have to escort. Direct the Attack every turn and the party will be fine with their presence.
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May 10, 2012 23:39
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Piell posted:Look at this dumb guy. Lazylords are the most fun warlords, because your weapon is the barbarian. Seriously. I love lazylords because I get to yell at my friends like an angry gym teacher and make them hit things again, like a real boy this time instead of some useless rock freak.
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May 11, 2012 00:07
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TheAnomaly posted:Seriously. I love lazylords because I get to yell at my friends like an angry gym teacher and make them hit things again, like a real boy this time instead of some useless rock freak. How does one make a lazylord? If I ever end up playing 4th ed, I must play as this.
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May 11, 2012 00:13
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Demon_Corsair posted:How does one make a lazylord? If I ever end up playing 4th ed, I must play as this.
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May 11, 2012 00:15
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Update on the Furry Aspie DM Well I got my Raven mech back and talked to his friend in the process. He said I should be given a second chance and sort of understood no actual insult was meant by anything I said. Perhaps I was being douchey but I'll blame the Internet Gaming Community where no matter what your build of anything is, its probably WRONG. (The Privateer Press forums are great at this.) Well the Furry sent me 2 more emails back to back: I'm thinking... ...about letting you sit in on Battletech to see how I run things. And to see if you've toned down your views of stock mechs. The stock mechs are fine just as they are, sure they aren't the greatest mechs in existence, but that just means you as the player have to work within the limitations of the machine. If the Battletech universe were real a Mechwarrior wouldn't go off against any given design of mech he was assigned, he would find out how to best utilize his machine with his abilities and then run with it. I've unblocked you, mostly because of XXXX and his opinions about you. Clearly he didn't understand a single thing I said at game, or anything I said in the short email before he called me an rear end in a top hat and blocked me. A few minutes later I get yet one more email: Observing Battletech... ...is probationary, and if my players don't think it's a good idea having you around then I will inform you of that. But I'm giving you a chance to see how Battletech should really be played, for the story and fun, and not the number crunching of how perfect a unit is. One of my players doesn't want me inviting you to observe us, he thinks all you'll do is cause problems and issues. OOkay. Apparently one of the other guys took issue too, but again said nothing. And 3 of the other players have gamed with me in the past. Honestly looking at these emails why the gently caress would I want to game in this group even if I hadn't had doubts before hand? Showing me how BT should be played? Ive been playing it since 88! I've taught dozens of people how to play, most seemed to enjoy it. My Pathfinder group has around 10 players in it! Yeah. I think I will pass on his "generous" offer. I did however send this nice email back: While I am glad you reconsidered I think its the best for all of us if I decline. I wish your game the best of luck, but you have seen my style of RPG, humor, and Battletech and frankly that's what works for me but obviously it doesn't work for your group. I think we will all be happier this way. Again, no insult was intended by anything I said and if I came off as a douche I do humbly apologize. I make funny voices as a GM. I tend to play support classes as a player. I was apparently supposed to play the rookie character without you know, being TOLD about it according to the dude who got me the Raven back. (Well starting BT 4th ed RPG has 5K exp for starting builds. I had 6500. We had at least one player with a 0/0 mechwarrior which is like equivalent to a 20th level 3.x D&D character, or a 30th 4th. by BT rules he simply cannot be any better!) I sent the stuff in italics and today got yet ANOTHER email from the GM, apparently ignoring everything I said: Battletech advice... ...mostly for when you're around new players. Don't give them your opinion about mechs, give them some mechs you feel are bad and some you feel are mediocre, and then some really good ones. Let them play with various designs and explore them for themselves and generate their own opinions about the mechs. This is some  level poo poo right here son. And it goes against every form of game discussion ever. poo poo, I am getting into Hordes now and am reading multiple articles and blog posts and forum entries so I build a decent starting army. Yes its good to learn through doing, but is some advice and experience that bad?Man I don't think I dodged a bullet here. I think I dodged a 16" battleship shell!
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May 11, 2012 00:49
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Captain Rufus posted:A few minutes later I get yet one more email:
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May 11, 2012 01:00
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Don't tell someone what mechs are bad, especially in a game with hundreds of mechs including the ability to custom build your own mech, instead let them pick the lovely mechs and enjoy them 'working within limitations'. Such limitations as 'the inability to walk and shoot more than two times without overheating to critical levels' or 'the complete lack of armor' make the game fun. People think constantly being blown up is fun, right?
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May 11, 2012 02:44
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Doesn't BT have an incredibly complex character sheet too? Something like hundreds of tiny boxes and lots of stats and minutia? It seems like it would be really frustrating to do all that bookkeeping and documentation only to blow up in a little mushroom cloud and have to redo it all.
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May 11, 2012 04:32
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DarkHorse posted:Doesn't BT have an incredibly complex character sheet too? Something like hundreds of tiny boxes and lots of stats and minutia? It seems like it would be really frustrating to do all that bookkeeping and documentation only to blow up in a little mushroom cloud and have to redo it all. In fairness it's not that complex and most of the tiny dots are like, mech damage counters and all, but yes making a BT character in the RPG is not a quick thing so being a dick like that is a real poo poo move for a GM. Also depending on the mech your ejection system may not be reliable/a thing, so losing a mech also could mean losing your mechwarrior meaning you now have to make two dudes.
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May 11, 2012 06:32
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Glitterbomber posted:In fairness it's not that complex and most of the tiny dots are like, mech damage counters and all, but yes making a BT character in the RPG is not a quick thing so being a dick like that is a real poo poo move for a GM. Wait, there are mechs without ejection systems? Are these the ones you buy from, like, the used mech salesman in a shady lot somewhere? "Yes, sir! This baby is rock solid! You'll never need to eject!"
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May 11, 2012 06:38
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Dr Nick posted:Wait, there are mechs without ejection systems? Mechs are more valuable than Mechwarriors. If you need a new Mechwarrior you just need two humans to gently caress; if you need a new 'Mech, most places have no idea how to build them anymore, they just kludge bits together as best they can. Accordingly, Mechwarrior safety systems are rudimentary, because there's always more Mechwarriors.
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May 11, 2012 06:43
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So I had a blast playing a Level 0 Dungeon Crawl Classics last night, and I thought I'd share it here. We had 6 players at our table, each player gets 4 characters that they run through it, it's expected that 3 of them per person will probably die off. So, essentially, there is this portal that only opens every 50 years or so, and it's rumored to have a whole bunch of loot in it, as well as a whole bunch of evil. So our 24 man mob, with a sow, a chicken and a duck, decide to grab what gear they can and attempt to rid the evil and loot the place. So we walk into the portal, after waiting around for a few hours, we decide to send our sow in first, followed by Fodder when we see nothing trigger, a poorly statted character except for endurance and HP- and he gets rammed with 4 spears as he walks through the door. There are 4 statues with hands extended in a manner as if they've thrown them, so we deduce what happened, and- after a quick detect traps check that we forgot to do previously, we figure that it been discharged. We decide to enter and take the spears and the scale mail on the statues, and we've divvied up 3 of them when a character- Stu- decides to put one in the hand of a statue. It resets the trap, aimed at the door. We're angry at him, so we make him walk through the next door, which is between the 4 statues. Nothing happens, and he opens is, revealing a large statue in the middle with gems, which we then loot after a thorough search for traps (we find none, though the statue seems to have intelligent eyes). Nothing happens until a character goes and opens a door on the western wall, and is promptly incinerated by a fireball followed by the statue. We're then told to roll for initiative. Essentially what happened was 7 of them hid behind the statue, away from it's finger which was pointing, my 4 character spreading to the 4 corners of the room and other guys heading into the west exit, with some at the doorway. Then the statue went, and killed 6 of the 7 guys hiding behind it. So as a consensus, we got the hell out of dodge. Ending up with 12 people in the north side, and 5- Stu included- on the west. North side went first, and we found a pool with gems, which we started to loot. Then the west guys went, and found a throne room guarded by a demon snake. The squire misses with his attack, and the snake promply rips his face off, causing the other 4 guys to run off- only Stu made it back to the north entrance slamming the door shut. Which the snake opened in the next round by slamming on it, so we roll initiative again. My scale mail wearing, longsword wielding BEAST of a Noble crits the thing for 12 damage plus the critical table (d16, ended up doing extra damage)- not quite killing it, allowing for my second character, who is just average, to kill it with his spear (he acted next). We look at Stu, bemoaning that he's the only one left of them. So we go to loot their corpses, my noble picking up a steel helm in the process- giving him double the AC of some of the other character in the party. We check out the throne room, but there really isn't anything there. So we decide to head back to the north room and head down the spiral stair case there. What we found down there was a wargamer's wet dream, it was a long hallway, it's walls lined with various minature soldiers, with a couple tactics tables on the side. We exit the room after looting a few of the silver statuettes, and we enter a 3 tiered room, with us on the top tier, clay generals on the second tier- with a clay king above them, on the bottom tier, about 100 clay soldiers. And they're all starting to animate. One intelligence check later, we see water dripping from the ceiling, and we figure that we're right below the room with the pool. So we leave 4 guys down in the corridor, blockading the thing with tables and wood, with fire, oil and holy water at the ready for when they break through. Cut to the party on the top, we're excavating the pool of crystals. My noble is 'overseeing' (he made an intelligence check that the pool would probably collapse if too many crystals would be removed, decided to tell no one.) Essentially it went like this, the soldiers broke through the lower door, were set on fire- died. Crystals were excavated. 4 Soldiers break through tables, take damage from attacks from the 4 of us, die. Crystals excavated. 2 lower characters die to soldiers. 2 soldiers die. Crystals excavated- pool drops, kills all but 7 soldiers and the king. Of the 6 people excavating- Stu didn't have a tool to excavate with- 1- Darrell survives, with 2 HP left. 2 soldiers die, the other 2 characters die, my Noble engages the 4 of them. Darrell smacks the king with holy water, king takes 1 point of damage from water. Stu runs for the door. All but 1 of the 4 soldiers miss me, I kill another soldier, Darrell crits the king for 4 points of damage, kills him- the rest of the soldiers crumple and die. Finally the guy playing Stu says- I run through the entrance. Our DM says- are you sure? Stu says yeah. DM: Okay then- as Stu runs to the entrance of the dungeon he feels a stabbing sensation as a spear pierces his back, take 6 points of damage. Stu dies. So it's just me and Darrell left, of all 24 characters, 22 died. So we loot their stuff and find a secret door to the back entrance, where we advanced to level 1, gotten some quality loot and some instructions. My Noble picked up a "Rod of Rulership", and a black grimoire while Darrell took a mace and scale mail and declared himself a cleric. When we walked out, we looted Stu's body and thanked his corpse for 'disarming' the trap. All in all, it was pretty fun, lots of laughs, and once we ran into those soldiers, we expected a TPK. All in all, I say the night was a success.
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May 11, 2012 06:49
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Captain Rufus posted:Update on the Furry Aspie DM This is hilarious, and I did a fistpump when it turned out your email hit all the same beats as the response email I composed in my head while reading.
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May 11, 2012 14:10
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Mechs are more valuable than Mechwarriors. If you need a new Mechwarrior you just need two humans to gently caress; if you need a new 'Mech, most places have no idea how to build them anymore, they just kludge bits together as best they can. Is the slogan still "Life is cheap. Battlemechs aren't."?
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May 11, 2012 14:27
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Mechs are more valuable than Mechwarriors. If you need a new Mechwarrior you just need two humans to gently caress; if you need a new 'Mech, most places have no idea how to build them anymore, they just kludge bits together as best they can. Yea, basically your average clan or house has a huge roster of people who would give their left balls to pilot a mech for their empire, much more than the supply of mechs they have, so the main focus is in making sure if it takes a missile to the engine you can salvage and fix the mech, and the Mechwarrior is an afterthought. Basically the main 'ejection system' is 'oh gently caress me, I'm overheating and my ammo is about to explode, time to pop my cockpit and jump out!' with maybe a seat that gets kinda launched out when the cockpit is opened to help out. The BT universe is super cool in that it's in this era right now where everyone HAS mechs but basically because everyone has them a lot of people have forgotten how to make them from nothing. Tanks and jets and poo poo are easy but building a mech usually involves some general going 'uh, we need long ranged support so...just weld a poo poo ton of things that blow people up from a distant range to a mech we already have? We'll call it the Dervish-CK8.' That said, I love the mental image of Honest Joe's Preowned Mech Warehouse. sexpig by night fucked around with this message at 14:40 on May 11, 2012 |
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May 11, 2012 14:37
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| # ? May 14, 2024 11:04 |
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Oh I see. I had a misunderstanding of the grimdark future world this game takes place in.
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May 11, 2012 20:11
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