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echopapa
Jun 2, 2005

El Presidente smiles upon this thread.
Bats live in the shaft.

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Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Watch a let's play of any Uncharted game. It's puzzles, climbing and complications.

You can also have a mystery relating to the collapse of the power plant and the workers within.

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.

My Lovely Horse posted:

Okay, I'm drawing a blank on non-combat obstacles for my party as they descend to the deepest point of a dwarven city.

1: The main reactor's exhaust (or other dangerous, fiery gas) vents through a hole in the room, blocking the path. A set of hazard suits is in a nearby side passage, but guarded by techno-magical traps. The traps can be disabled via a secured override, but it is without power.

2: A dead end. A sign precedes it, noting in Dwarven "Danger: area sealed due to <insert clue to text combat encounter or obstacle>" If examined, the floor is somewhat different from the stone of the surrounding rooms, as if it were added later. Either a party member has a spell to explode or bore through it, or they must find something nearby to do the same.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









My Lovely Horse posted:

Okay, I'm drawing a blank on non-combat obstacles for my party as they descend to the deepest point of a dwarven city. Basically, they're in the dwarves' old power plant, and they're making their way to the main reactor, except the plant is built as a vertical shaft. Probably with a few control rooms, maintenance areas etc. branching off though. There has been a certain amount of destruction from when things went out of control way back when, and I'm just looking for some stuff to insert so it's not just "roll Athletics to climb down." Bonus points if it's something that can be circumvented with a battery (see above).

Example: heavy security door needs to be opened, someone needs to man the manual release while someone else manually bridges the broken mechanism or you pop a battery in the emergency power slot and won't have one later. Along those lines.

A bunch of rooms where the dwarves barricaded themselves in and killed themselves. Throw in some random clues.

Listen to the players' explanations for why it might have happened and pick the best one.

Gamerofthegame
Oct 28, 2010

Could at least flip one or two, maybe.

My Lovely Horse posted:

Okay, I'm drawing a blank on non-combat obstacles for my party as they descend to the deepest point of a dwarven city. Basically, they're in the dwarves' old power plant, and they're making their way to the main reactor, except the plant is built as a vertical shaft. Probably with a few control rooms, maintenance areas etc. branching off though. There has been a certain amount of destruction from when things went out of control way back when, and I'm just looking for some stuff to insert so it's not just "roll Athletics to climb down." Bonus points if it's something that can be circumvented with a battery (see above).

Example: heavy security door needs to be opened, someone needs to man the manual release while someone else manually bridges the broken mechanism or you pop a battery in the emergency power slot and won't have one later. Along those lines.

Dwarves use golems because they're loving dwarves, several areas in the plant use these non-conductive, perfectly "disposable" golems for dangerous work. However, with the abandonment means the golems are no longer being attended to. Machinery is left inert, though the passage of time has fuddled up with wires with rust, rats and rustmonsters who are basically rats, leaving half-operational bits of machinery that occasionally runs hot with electrical/magical/whatever current that, unfortunately, the party needs to meander through. They can try to athletics/item use to get through the hot mess, but failing will lead to getting shocked and taking damage, as well as potentially completing a circuit and making the whole mess move and become that much worse. Alternatively, they can power up one of the golems and direct it to clear up the path at the cost of one of their batteries.

The party can go through a relatively safe looking tunnel, but just looking around the corner they see bits of twigs and paper, signs of a nest. It otherwise looks safe and it sounds quiet. The alternative is dangerously going around it by dangling/high adventure. If the try the nest they do indeed find it pretty empty, a few giant monster eggs aside, but this attracts the attention of the giant not-Zapados momma bird who then harries the party the rest of the way down, whenever they're close to the "windows," to protect her nest.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



One area towards the end where there's a dwarf skeleton still slumped over a lever that's in the "down" position. It's the emergency stop for something huge and scary (power plant?). He got to it too late to save everyone (or even anyone?) inside, but early enough to avert the city-sized-crater-still-smoking-100-years-later kind of disaster.

There are plenty of clues about the terrible things that will happen if you move that lever again once it's been pulled. There should also be a reason you'd want to pull it, like to collapse XYZ floors below you or to blow the whole roof off to get out or something.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

These are all great, cheers. I've mixed them up a bit and sorted the bits into vague themes and came up with three obstacles:

The door
Set: A room with a massive metal door. The walls are metal plating; in places, they’ve fallen off the walls, revealing intricate cogworks. A crank is located near the door, with a dead dwarf’s skeleton still holding on to it.
Mechanics: The door can be opened with the manual emergency crank (Athletics); however, the crank’s mechanism is damaged and must be bridged on-the-fly in the right spot while the crank is being turned (Thievery). Once opened, the door also needs to be held in place (Endurance) and propped open (Dungeoneering).
Override: Power a terminal that controls the automatic door mechanism.
Extra: Speak with Dead could reveal that the dwarf was an engineer who escaped the initial destruction badly injured, but managed to close the safety door. He doesn’t know the nature of the power source; only the Magineers did. (If overriding, he may know a required security password.)

The collapsed shafts
Set: A system of shafts and rooms, badly damaged and largely collapsed. The path down splits in two: through a room that only has girders left in place of a floor, or through a narrow passage. Perception reveals the squeaking of bats in the floorless room and the smell and debris of some sort of nest in the passage.
Mechanics: The floorless room requires balancing across the girders (Acrobatics). The bats must not be disturbed, or they start fluttering around, making balancing across much harder (easy/medium Nature/Stealth).
The passage contains a nest of mutated lizards, once the pets of Dwarven workers. Disturbing the eggs (medium/hard Nature/Stealth to avoid) will attract the attention of a queen lizard, who will chase the party down the tunnel. She can be fought directly (risk of losing resources) or lured into a pit trap further down (Stealth/Bluff).
Override Power a half-buried golem that can go ahead of the party into one of the passages, distracting whatever creatures are in there and luring them away.

The Magineers’ office
Set: A bubble of poisonous gas has accumulated in a collapsed passage. Inspection reveals that this area used to be a technomagic laboratory and the gas is a common result of failed magic experiments. There is a set of emergency hazard suits, but they are protected by traps and zones of wild magic.
Mechanics: It’s not recommended since the passage is quite long, but the party could simply hold their breath (Endurance). They would need to find the right way quickly (Dungeoneering). Disarming the traps (Thievery) and dispelling the zones of magic (Arcana) to get to the suits is the much more sensible way.
Override: Power an emergency ventilation system that removes enough of the gas to make it safely through.
Extra: With the information from the dwarf skeleton, the area can be searched (Perception) to reveal clues to the nature of the power source, and some countermeasures to its dangers.

sebmojo posted:

A bunch of rooms where the dwarves barricaded themselves in and killed themselves.
That's maybe a bit grim for us but it does give me the idea for a fourth obstacle where the ghosts of dwarves that died down there... do something I'm not yet sure about. But it can be resolved by use of History, Religion and maybe Insight, possibly a social skill too. Override: just turn the lights back on because ghosts are only scary in the dark :v:

My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Jul 25, 2016

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Gave that last one some more thought, how about this:

The Dwarves' last rest
Set: The area becomes dark and cold, and moaning can be heard. Corridors and rooms start leading into each other in strange loops, regularly leading to three particular objects. There does not seem to be a way out, or even back anymore.
Mechanics: Considering the situation carefully (Insight) can reveal that the surroundings aren't entirely real, that restless ghosts are about (this alone could also be revealed by Religion), and that the objects must be somehow connected. Anyone who knows the slightly obscure legend of an old dwarven priest (History/Religion) will have an easy time connecting them in the right order, which opens a new way to a room where some dwarves got trapped when the shaft collapsed. Their ghosts have been trying to find their way to the afterlife, and it's up to the party to lay them to rest (Religion).
Override: Switching on the emergency lighting ends this spooky nonsense.

(Maybe, though, they should discover the dwarves first, then lead them to the afterlife through the old story.)

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









My Lovely Horse posted:

These are all great, cheers. I've mixed them up a bit and sorted the bits into vague themes and came up with three obstacles:

The door
Set: A room with a massive metal door. The walls are metal plating; in places, they’ve fallen off the walls, revealing intricate cogworks. A crank is located near the door, with a dead dwarf’s skeleton still holding on to it.
Mechanics: The door can be opened with the manual emergency crank (Athletics); however, the crank’s mechanism is damaged and must be bridged on-the-fly in the right spot while the crank is being turned (Thievery). Once opened, the door also needs to be held in place (Endurance) and propped open (Dungeoneering).
Override: Power a terminal that controls the automatic door mechanism.
Extra: Speak with Dead could reveal that the dwarf was an engineer who escaped the initial destruction badly injured, but managed to close the safety door. He doesn’t know the nature of the power source; only the Magineers did. (If overriding, he may know a required security password.)

The collapsed shafts
Set: A system of shafts and rooms, badly damaged and largely collapsed. The path down splits in two: through a room that only has girders left in place of a floor, or through a narrow passage. Perception reveals the squeaking of bats in the floorless room and the smell and debris of some sort of nest in the passage.
Mechanics: The floorless room requires balancing across the girders (Acrobatics). The bats must not be disturbed, or they start fluttering around, making balancing across much harder (easy/medium Nature/Stealth).
The passage contains a nest of mutated lizards, once the pets of Dwarven workers. Disturbing the eggs (medium/hard Nature/Stealth to avoid) will attract the attention of a queen lizard, who will chase the party down the tunnel. She can be fought directly (risk of losing resources) or lured into a pit trap further down (Stealth/Bluff).
Override Power a half-buried golem that can go ahead of the party into one of the passages, distracting whatever creatures are in there and luring them away.

The Magineers’ office
Set: A bubble of poisonous gas has accumulated in a collapsed passage. Inspection reveals that this area used to be a technomagic laboratory and the gas is a common result of failed magic experiments. There is a set of emergency hazard suits, but they are protected by traps and zones of wild magic.
Mechanics: It’s not recommended since the passage is quite long, but the party could simply hold their breath (Endurance). They would need to find the right way quickly (Dungeoneering). Disarming the traps (Thievery) and dispelling the zones of magic (Arcana) to get to the suits is the much more sensible way.
Override: Power an emergency ventilation system that removes enough of the gas to make it safely through.
Extra: With the information from the dwarf skeleton, the area can be searched (Perception) to reveal clues to the nature of the power source, and some countermeasures to its dangers.

That's maybe a bit grim for us but it does give me the idea for a fourth obstacle where the ghosts of dwarves that died down there... do something I'm not yet sure about. But it can be resolved by use of History, Religion and maybe Insight, possibly a social skill too. Override: just turn the lights back on because ghosts are only scary in the dark :v:

there's a good bit in one of the 13th age adventures where there's a drunken dwarf ghost who fell into the vat and drowned...

Duckbox
Sep 7, 2007

My Lovely Horse posted:

Gave that last one some more thought, how about this:

The Dwarves' last rest
Set: The area becomes dark and cold, and moaning can be heard. Corridors and rooms start leading into each other in strange loops, regularly leading to three particular objects. There does not seem to be a way out, or even back anymore.
Mechanics: Considering the situation carefully (Insight) can reveal that the surroundings aren't entirely real, that restless ghosts are about (this alone could also be revealed by Religion), and that the objects must be somehow connected. Anyone who knows the slightly obscure legend of an old dwarven priest (History/Religion) will have an easy time connecting them in the right order, which opens a new way to a room where some dwarves got trapped when the shaft collapsed. Their ghosts have been trying to find their way to the afterlife, and it's up to the party to lay them to rest (Religion).
Override: Switching on the emergency lighting ends this spooky nonsense.

(Maybe, though, they should discover the dwarves first, then lead them to the afterlife through the old story.)

I really like this one, but I'll throw out the idea I had anyway because one of us might use it some day.

On the day of the accident in question, several representatives of the Dwarven Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Thaumatomic Engineers Union Local 13 were due to meet with the facility management over a recent spate of unpaid overtime (presumably this overtime was related to trying to prevent/accidentally causing whatever events led to everything going to poo poo). The management kept the union reps waiting for hours and tried all manner of schemes to get them to "walk away" from the meeting. When the accident happened and warning lights started going off, they thought it was just another ruse and refused to leave until they received the back pay they were due. They subsequently asphyxiated from toxic gas, but there spirits are still there and they're madder than ever, in fact they've gone on strike and are picketing the manager's office and blocking the PCs path. If the PCs try to force their way past the spirits (pretty easy since they're intangible), the workers will declare them "scabs" and attack them. Nonviolent solutions involve convincing the spirits that they're dead and they should move on (unlikely), convincing the spirits that they're on their side and will go talk to management for them (if the PCs don't come back this may result in them getting attacked by ghosts later), or giving the dwarves a magical battery (or maybe just a ton of gold) as a bribe/token of goodwill. Either way, passing into the manager's office will reveal the manager's corpse, a safe, and a ledger full of numbers that don't add up. The safe is full of gold, jewels, and moldy bits of paper, but if the PCs try to take any of it they'll have to fight the angry ghost of the manager who died guarding his ill gotten goods, plus whatever traps and safeguards he set up when he was alive.

Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
I'm still poor at writing campaigns, can I try to tell you guys what I've written and what my group has played out so far and get some feedback?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Go for it.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.
So a question for the thread: I've been DMing for a group of 4th edition D&D players, and through a series of lucky rolls and events, the ranger has tamed a bloodseeker drake, who's been travelling with the party. The player is looking forward to using the drake in battle with them, and I'm looking for some suggestions about how to represent that. I'm loath to simply give him a beast, as he's not a beastmaster character and doesn't have any powers that synergise. I'm also leery of allowing the drake to serve as a character. the system I'm thinking of using is to give the player a token representing the drake, and that, as a minor action, the player can discard the token to gain a benefit from the drake. When a bloodied enemy is present, the token no longer requires a minor action to use.

I've been thinking that one of the possible uses is causing an enemy to grant combat advantage, but are there any other effects that wouldn't be too onerous or useful?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
You're on the right track: calling upon the Drake is a Minor Action Encounter Power. Think an assist move from Marvel vs Capcom: the Drake swoops in, does A Thing, and swoops out.

Work with the player on what he'd like for it to do, and give the player to shape the development of the Drake (read: change or add to the Drake's capabilities) over time as the story develops.

starkebn
May 18, 2004

"Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"

Tias posted:

I'm still poor at writing campaigns, can I try to tell you guys what I've written and what my group has played out so far and get some feedback?

have you tried not prewriting your campaign?

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Torchlighter posted:

So a question for the thread: I've been DMing for a group of 4th edition D&D players, and through a series of lucky rolls and events, the ranger has tamed a bloodseeker drake, who's been travelling with the party. The player is looking forward to using the drake in battle with them, and I'm looking for some suggestions about how to represent that. I'm loath to simply give him a beast, as he's not a beastmaster character and doesn't have any powers that synergise. I'm also leery of allowing the drake to serve as a character. the system I'm thinking of using is to give the player a token representing the drake, and that, as a minor action, the player can discard the token to gain a benefit from the drake. When a bloodied enemy is present, the token no longer requires a minor action to use.

I've been thinking that one of the possible uses is causing an enemy to grant combat advantage, but are there any other effects that wouldn't be too onerous or useful?
Easiest way: allow him to respec to Beast Mastery. The only obstacle is he might not want to. :v:

Second easiest way: I have to ask, is there any particular reason why you don't want the drake to serve as an additional character? The companion rules in DMG2 are pretty well balanced and looking at the Bloodseeker Drake it's about as simple as a monster can be. It would certainly be less complicated than a token system with extra conditions (and you can't say that of many monsters).

That being said, having the drake serve as an encounter power/assist move, so to speak, would work equally well. In fact, Adventurer's Vault has a few wondrous items that conjure helpful creatures which you could look at for inspiration/reflavouring.

e: I think prewriting your campaign is perfectly fine provided you're prepared to chuck out your plans at a moment's notice and go with what your players want. I basically have my endgame laid out from now until the projected ending in a few months, and I'm constantly checking myself not to do too much in advance and to leave enough breathing space so my ideas don't become the one and only way things can go.

My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Jul 28, 2016

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



starkebn posted:

have you tried not prewriting your campaign?

This.

Don't try to write some epic story all in one go and have them play through it.

Plan out the next few sessions to deal with whatever they players are currently doing. Leave gaps in your planning so you can listen to their speculation about what's going on and put in stuff that relates to that.

Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Based on prior bad experience with too much writing, I've actually gone in without deciding on how to progress the campaign, and now I don't know how to continue.

The setting is Shadowrun: Hong Kong. We play 4E if it's any help.

The Characters know: They have worked for a corp suit, via their fixer Yexiang Wei. Their first job was ganking a plainclothes Evo courier and nabbing the plans for Crashcart expansion in Hong Kong, carried in his blood-borne nano storage. They blew up part of Kowloon, but succeeded. Then their fixer celebrated by inviting them to a floating restaurant where, in plain sight, a little girl was nabbed by a illusion-using mutant squid. Spurred on by a cash reward from her parents, they trail the paracritter to a disused water treatment plant and do it in after a fierce fight.

What I know: They work for the dragon Shan, who use their expertise to wipe out his competitors on the executive council of Hong Kong. I want to keep the characters on their toes by having them attacked by one of Shans rivals, a black wujen called the Manchurian. He sent the squid after them, but it got sidetracked and grabbed the girl.

Stuff I want to introduce:

Wraiths - once imperial concubines who have gotten a finger digit bone from the Buddha each, granting them immortality. Perhaps Yexiang invites them for a proper celebration on the floating restaurant, where they attack the restaurant. I have an idea about the Manchurian having soured his relations with the yakuza, and being a mad chinese alchymist, he unleashed the ancient evil on them.

A The Raid-esque fight through a lovely slum tenement to take out drug traffickers.

An ancient focus, a pair of glasses, unleash a poo poo-ton of Toxic Man Spirit (I'm thinking Shiro Ishii, head of Unit 731 when he was alive).



So, the main plot, if such can be said to exist, is probably finding out they work for a dragon, and trying to get back at it. This could happen by the dragon forcing their (trusted and loyal) fixer into double-crossing them once it thinks they're a liability.. After all, they have stirred up his mad wizard rival - but I'm willing to fudge things if the players come up with a better explanation of what they want.

What I can't seem to get a hold on, is how to tie the events I want to happen into a larger narrative :(

starkebn
May 18, 2004

"Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"
Shadowrun can be so 'mission' based I wouldn't sweat it. Just keep playing week to week until the inspiration hits. Hopefully someone can give you better advice!

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

starkebn posted:

Shadowrun can be so 'mission' based I wouldn't sweat it. Just keep playing week to week until the inspiration hits. Hopefully someone can give you better advice!

Yeah it's pretty much baked into the structure of the game. I find that it's best to just lay things out and let the players run around in a little sandbox. My 'map' for the last mission I ran for my guys was a series of interconnected bubbles with notes inside of them. And then the guys pretty much sidelined the entire thing by hacking the reception and getting a fake email sent. Because gently caress it, I can use the map later.

Moriatti
Apr 21, 2014

Torchlighter posted:

So a question for the thread: I've been DMing for a group of 4th edition D&D players, and through a series of lucky rolls and events, the ranger has tamed a bloodseeker drake, who's been travelling with the party. The player is looking forward to using the drake in battle with them, and I'm looking for some suggestions about how to represent that. I'm loath to simply give him a beast, as he's not a beastmaster character and doesn't have any powers that synergise. I'm also leery of allowing the drake to serve as a character. the system I'm thinking of using is to give the player a token representing the drake, and that, as a minor action, the player can discard the token to gain a benefit from the drake. When a bloodied enemy is present, the token no longer requires a minor action to use.

I've been thinking that one of the possible uses is causing an enemy to grant combat advantage, but are there any other effects that wouldn't be too onerous or useful?

This is my solution.

Feel free to use as much or as little of that as you would like.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









starkebn posted:

Shadowrun can be so 'mission' based I wouldn't sweat it. Just keep playing week to week until the inspiration hits. Hopefully someone can give you better advice!

make a note of elements your players like, and reintroduce the ones they do later. That's basically it. Eventually you'll have a cool campaign :)

Arrrthritis
May 31, 2007

I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Moriatti posted:

This is my solution.

Feel free to use as much or as little of that as you would like.

It turns out I've been more or less using this idea for my own game (Actual companion cards can be found on the second post) I've been sticking to giving them passives of +2 skill / +1 Def and an encounter power that kind of represents what the character is about (and limit the party to one passive that they have to decide on). (example) I personally don't really want to track morale mechanics, so I just decided to give them sidequests or items that when resolved would guarantee the companion won't desert, barring outright cruelty.

I can't really attest to how valuable having a passive/encounter is because the game is still in its early stages, and I always make sure to mention that powers are in their formative stages and will be changes if they trivialize encounters too much, but the response I've gotten so far from it has been really good and people have been making sure to recruit people in battles now.

tl;dr the system works.

Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

sebmojo posted:

make a note of elements your players like, and reintroduce the ones they do later. That's basically it. Eventually you'll have a cool campaign :)

I will, thanks. We're on a schedule where we can't play so often, and our close-knit group has a lot of other players wanting to GM their own things when we're done here. It's not overly competitive, but I wan't to provide a cool story and make every session enjoyable, you know?

Moriatti
Apr 21, 2014

Arrrthritis posted:

It turns out I've been more or less using this idea for my own game (Actual companion cards can be found on the second post) I've been sticking to giving them passives of +2 skill / +1 Def and an encounter power that kind of represents what the character is about (and limit the party to one passive that they have to decide on). (example) I personally don't really want to track morale mechanics, so I just decided to give them sidequests or items that when resolved would guarantee the companion won't desert, barring outright cruelty.

I can't really attest to how valuable having a passive/encounter is because the game is still in its early stages, and I always make sure to mention that powers are in their formative stages and will be changes if they trivialize encounters too much, but the response I've gotten so far from it has been really good and people have been making sure to recruit people in battles now.

tl;dr the system works.

Yeah, this is an early test for me.

The Morale is just a replacement for defences, it doesn't change over the course of battle unless someone fucks up, but can change according to a story elements. For the given character, Exterminus, his morale would be high if they were questing to destroy humans (or at least lying to him about it) and low if they were doing something like saving an orphanage.

9/10 it'll stay the same, it's just an extra little feature.

Elfgames
Sep 11, 2011

Fun Shoe
Ok so i was inspired by an idea in the d&d next thread to do a Mega Man themed game (though i was thinking of going a bit more Mega Man X with it)

basically a home base and 8 dungeons + a final castle


What i need from you guys is robotmaster/maverick names, the theme i was thinking about going with is D&D monster plus D&D class Instead of the typical Element+Animal of mega man X

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
Manticore Mage
Fiendish Fighter
Warlock Wight

Moriatti
Apr 21, 2014

May I suggest switching them?

Artificer Owlbear
Paladin Flumph
Rogue Inevitable

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.

I went for allierative names and swapping the two around, so:

Cleric Cambion
Barbarian Bugbear
Shadowdancer Slaad
Paladin Pegasus
Loremaster Lich

Arrrthritis
May 31, 2007

I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Moriatti posted:

Yeah, this is an early test for me.

The Morale is just a replacement for defences, it doesn't change over the course of battle unless someone fucks up, but can change according to a story elements. For the given character, Exterminus, his morale would be high if they were questing to destroy humans (or at least lying to him about it) and low if they were doing something like saving an orphanage.

9/10 it'll stay the same, it's just an extra little feature.

Yeah, I meant to say that it was a matter of personal preference for me, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with holding a morale system if you want desertion to be a recurring thing.


Elfgames posted:

What i need from you guys is robotmaster/maverick names, the theme i was thinking about going with is D&D monster plus D&D class Instead of the typical Element+Animal of mega man X

Ardent Aboleth
Skeleton Swordmage
Bardic Beholder
Will O' The Warlord
Roguish Rakshasha
Purple Worm Paladin

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

[class] [creature] feels a lot more like Mega Man X than [creature] [class], for the same reasons the mavericks weren't called "Octopus Launcher" or "Mammoth Flamethrower."

I'd go for stuff that feels a little incongruous, just enough to make you think "but how." Mega Man boss names always have this air of absurdity about them, but once there's a theme, the boss and level fully commit to it.

Wizard Ooze, for example, lives at the top of a wizard tower, and the party will mainly encounter small oozes that drip through from the next floor - it's like he's always one step ahead and keeps shedding minions. The floors are gooey and slippery around the numerous holes. The small oozes come in different (color-coded) types, and each type knows one spell. (Or maybe spell school.) Wizard Ooze himself knows all the spells the party has encountered in his minions so far, and attacking him causes him to shed more minions, and eventually split in two. Maybe they cast Mirror Image, in fact, maybe you won't know he's split until you sort out the spell.

Rogue Skeleton, on the other hand, makes his lair in an abandoned village where he stores his ill-gotten gains, protected by clever traps as well as dangerous outlaws who strike at the party from the shadows. He's the undisputed leader of a gang of thieves, mainly because their usual mode of succession is assassinating the leader, but they have only daggers and haven't yet figured out how.

shitty poker hand
Jun 13, 2013

Arrrthritis posted:

Will O' The Warlord

:perfect:

Cat Face Joe
Feb 20, 2005

goth vegan crossfit mom who vapes



Guts Gnome.

Razorwired
Dec 7, 2008

It's about to start!
Metal Moon, an animated suit of armor that uses Druid shifts Transformer-Style. Monsters are animated traps and torture devices.

BugBard: A Bugbear with a surprisingly alluring baritone. He sings over different backup bands from a protected platform. After you beat his folk, jazz and pop bands he summons their ghosts back and fights the party to Doom metal.

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

Tias posted:

Based on prior bad experience with too much writing, I've actually gone in without deciding on how to progress the campaign, and now I don't know how to continue.

The setting is Shadowrun: Hong Kong. We play 4E if it's any help.

The Characters know: They have worked for a corp suit, via their fixer Yexiang Wei. Their first job was ganking a plainclothes Evo courier and nabbing the plans for Crashcart expansion in Hong Kong, carried in his blood-borne nano storage. They blew up part of Kowloon, but succeeded. Then their fixer celebrated by inviting them to a floating restaurant where, in plain sight, a little girl was nabbed by a illusion-using mutant squid. Spurred on by a cash reward from her parents, they trail the paracritter to a disused water treatment plant and do it in after a fierce fight.

What I know: They work for the dragon Shan, who use their expertise to wipe out his competitors on the executive council of Hong Kong. I want to keep the characters on their toes by having them attacked by one of Shans rivals, a black wujen called the Manchurian. He sent the squid after them, but it got sidetracked and grabbed the girl.

Stuff I want to introduce:

Wraiths - once imperial concubines who have gotten a finger digit bone from the Buddha each, granting them immortality. Perhaps Yexiang invites them for a proper celebration on the floating restaurant, where they attack the restaurant. I have an idea about the Manchurian having soured his relations with the yakuza, and being a mad chinese alchymist, he unleashed the ancient evil on them.

A The Raid-esque fight through a lovely slum tenement to take out drug traffickers.

An ancient focus, a pair of glasses, unleash a poo poo-ton of Toxic Man Spirit (I'm thinking Shiro Ishii, head of Unit 731 when he was alive).



So, the main plot, if such can be said to exist, is probably finding out they work for a dragon, and trying to get back at it. This could happen by the dragon forcing their (trusted and loyal) fixer into double-crossing them once it thinks they're a liability.. After all, they have stirred up his mad wizard rival - but I'm willing to fudge things if the players come up with a better explanation of what they want.

What I can't seem to get a hold on, is how to tie the events I want to happen into a larger narrative :(

5e offers some advice on this and I can't remember if the 4e books offers any help.

What I did was run a big array of different missions for the PCs, letting them pick between major factions until they had formed some opinions on the universe. Then I wrote the main plot. Then I did like most television shows do: episodes are disconnected or focus on individual character development, but the 'show' is occasionally visited by a major 'plot' episode in which the primary storyline gets advanced. Shadowrun is real good for this because you can have the plot advance in the background, or give the players an option to engage with it, as you choose. Treat them like a TV show is my best advice, giving the players lots of control over what kinds of jobs to take while occasionally hitting them with major story advancement.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Have you guys ever done the Law & Order Criminal Intent thing (I'm sure this is a trope / plot device more common than that) where you show the villain carrying out or talking about their plan completely absent of any visibility from the players? Did you find it useful?

LeschNyhan
Sep 2, 2006

gradenko_2000 posted:

Have you guys ever done the Law & Order Criminal Intent thing (I'm sure this is a trope / plot device more common than that) where you show the villain carrying out or talking about their plan completely absent of any visibility from the players? Did you find it useful?

Generally no, because there's no way for the players to respond or intervene, so they're stuck listening to you for ten minutes while their immersion slowly breaks. If on the other hand, you present them with a witness or evidence of what happened, they have to come up with the questions to ask or ways to investigate. Depending on your setting, you might be able to still do the same thing, but in a way that requires player input or participation: scrying rituals, hacking security cameras, speak with dead, laser microphone, whatever. But that way the monologue comes as a reward for their efforts, rather than just dropped in their lap.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

Torchlighter posted:

So a question for the thread: I've been DMing for a group of 4th edition D&D players, and through a series of lucky rolls and events, the ranger has tamed a bloodseeker drake, who's been travelling with the party. The player is looking forward to using the drake in battle with them, and I'm looking for some suggestions about how to represent that. I'm loath to simply give him a beast, as he's not a beastmaster character and doesn't have any powers that synergise. I'm also leery of allowing the drake to serve as a character. the system I'm thinking of using is to give the player a token representing the drake, and that, as a minor action, the player can discard the token to gain a benefit from the drake. When a bloodied enemy is present, the token no longer requires a minor action to use.

I've been thinking that one of the possible uses is causing an enemy to grant combat advantage, but are there any other effects that wouldn't be too onerous or useful?

Have you looked at the daily Summon powers that wizards can get? I think with those you spend a Daily to drop the summon onto the battlefield. Then the summon has a 'default' behaviour pattern (which generally amounts to "run towards the nearest enemy and attack it") which it'll do every turn unless you intervene, but you can spend a Standard action to dictate the summon's standard action, a Move to dictate its move action, and so on.

Lynx Winters
May 1, 2003

Borderlawns: The Treehouse of Pandora

gradenko_2000 posted:

Have you guys ever done the Law & Order Criminal Intent thing (I'm sure this is a trope / plot device more common than that) where you show the villain carrying out or talking about their plan completely absent of any visibility from the players? Did you find it useful?

If you have the right kind of group for it, which is a question only you can answer, doing a prologue scene where your players are the villain and victim and witnesses and every player knows ahead of time that the victim is going to die, go for it.

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Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

Lynx Winters posted:

If you have the right kind of group for it, which is a question only you can answer, doing a prologue scene where your players are the villain and victim and witnesses and every player knows ahead of time that the victim is going to die, go for it.

That's a cool idea, and I'm pretty sure I have a group that can pull it off. Gonna have to keep that in mind.

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