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I confess to liking the Black Dog, because anime cyborg anime, and also it has a lot of funky add-ons as cybernetic attachments and even vehicles if I remember right. Never quite figured out what would pair super well with it, although like Night says no combo is completely useless.
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Dec 18, 2018 22:30
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Black Dog combos quite well with everything because it's got a lot of "Passively just makes you stronger without using an action" stuff and also well rounded array of other things that can cover anything you feel your other Syndrome isn't doing a good job of handling.
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Dec 18, 2018 22:39
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Dawgstar posted:I confess to liking the Black Dog, because anime cyborg anime, and also it has a lot of funky add-ons as cybernetic attachments and even vehicles if I remember right. Never quite figured out what would pair super well with it, although like Night says no combo is completely useless. Weirdly, I just now realized it would go great with Brahm Stoker while talking it over with a friend. Because one of the things the blood clones have is they have all your powers. One of Black Dog's big 'things' is having a bunch of always on buffs that just raise your Encroachment for buying them. Take the thing that lets you summon multiple pets and suddenly your pets are coming out equipped and ready, and probably with Pain Editor for extra HP too. Some of Black Dog's other stuff could also get you around the pets not having Skills. Plus you could fluff that as being a living nanomachine colony that splits off little combat drones and that's cool. I will get to all of this in time! All the power sets are good! Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 18, 2018 |
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Dec 18, 2018 22:39
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Night10194 posted:Weirdly, I just now realized it would go great with Brahm Stoker while talking it over with a friend. Because one of the things the blood clones have is they have all your powers. One of Black Dog's big 'things' is having a bunch of always on buffs that just raise your Encroachment for buying them. Take the thing that lets you summon multiple pets and suddenly your pets are coming out equipped and ready, and probably with Pain Editor for extra HP too. Some of Black Dog's other stuff could also get you around the pets not having Skills. That is anime as everything ever and I love it.
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Dec 18, 2018 23:01
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At my table's very short Double Cross campaign, our Black Dog character was a foreign exchange student, so our excuse for any time she acts weird like plugging herself into a wall at a cafe or something is 'Oh, haven't you heard? That's the latest thing in France.'
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Dec 18, 2018 23:19
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Double Cross LASER NOISE So, before I get into this, I need to officially talk about Guard, Dodge, and Armor. So one of things you want in Double Cross is stuff that keeps you from dying. When you get attacked, you get the option of trying to Guard it or Dodge it. If you Guard, you get the Guard stat of one of your weapons (or both, if you have a specific Neumann power) plus any modifiers to your Guard stat (usually from powers) added to your damage reduction. If you Dodge, you try to use a power that performs a dodge, or just roll dice equal to your Body in a normal check. There's actually another power like Conc that's used for Dodging, called Reflexes, but I missed that it existed for like two years of running this game and so my players and I agreed to just let Conc be used for Dodging. Also I'm calling Concentration Conc for the rest of the review. You can't stop me. If you gently caress up a Dodge and get hit, you get no DR except your armor (and a few reactive powers that will reduce incoming damage after a failed dodge). Basically Guard tends to be more reliable and with a high HP character, you can reduce stuff to chip damage or reduce a huge hit enough that you survive it to get healed or hit back. Meanwhile, if you successfully and consistently Dodge, you don't take damage, period. It's higher risk, higher reward. Both are useful. Some powers will also explicitly slip past armor, and some will even shatter armor, opening an armored character up to get murdered by other characters, too. You can do a lot of things with powers! Angel Halo is focused on being slippery, accurate, and hitting a lot harder than people expect you to. It's great for snipers, mages, and with its tricksy illusion powers it can be surprisingly good for melee characters who have another Syndrome for raw damage. It also has the curious but mostly irrelevant trait where the two summonable weapons from Angel Halo (a lot of characters will summon a weapon with a power at the start of a fight) both cast in setup and the Ranged Angel Halo weapon has pretty much unlimited range. They make up for that by not being very powerful. You're usually better off using another Syndrome's weaponry. Angel Halo's Illusion powers also let it break out of engagements and gently caress around with movement a bit; speaking of you also get locked into melee and have to use a full turn to break out if someone engages you. Halo gets stuff like a Dodge rider that lets you break out of Engagement and move immediately when you dodge an incoming attack, which can be really good for a ranged focused character; a lot of heavier ranged weapons and some of the ranged attack spells don't work on people in melee with you. Halo tends to really like Sense and/or Mind. Halos love Sense partly for sniping, partly for Initiative, and partly because they get a power that will let them use Sense instead of Mind for Magic (so that a character using casting abilities and shooting abilities can draw from the same stat for both at a small extra Encroachment cost) AND one that lets them use Sense and the Perception skill in place of Body+Dodge for Dodging. A Pure Halo who wants to do so can run their Magic, their Dodging, and their Shooting off of one stat. Halo also has some interesting standouts, like Light of Oblivion, which gives a whopping +3 Attack per Level (only 3 levels, though. Most Attack Boosts are 1 or 2 per level) as long as the attack it's linked to is an AoE. Halo also has a solid basic magic attack, Light Bow, that only costs 1 Encroach (realistically, 3, since you'll Conc it) for 2+Level damage (up to 10 levels), and this is our first encounter with basic casting attacks, so I'm going to point out a weird little thing about them: It's 'Target -' so long as they aren't in melee with you. That means you can add in the extra attack power from Light Bow for 1 Encroach to ANY casting attack. Using an AoE spell? Add in Light Bow. It's great, and why it's worth investing in leveling up what seems like a lot of effort for an 'up to 12 damage' attack. Halo also has ways around defenses, including Light Speed Sword, which will let you remove the option to Guard against one of your melee or ranged attacks once per session per level you've put in it. You can ignore armor with Precision Laser at the cost of -5 damage on the attack, but given Makoto's armor at the lowest level was 10, that's a good trade. Leveling it up will eventually eliminate the penalty, at 1 point per level. You can once per session make a magic attack hit every enemy in view for a penalty of -20 damage, removing 5 points of the penalty per point you've put in Stardust Rain. Halo also gets the very unique ability to go into Stealth at any time with Heat Haze Robe, turning themselves invisible. What this means is enemies can't actually target the stealthed Halo with anything but AoEs for one turn. They then have a bunch of other powers that either greatly debuff enemy Dodge against them if they're stealthed, or greatly improve their physical attacks while stealthed. So a Chimera-Halo might seem like an unusual combo, but then the giant 9 foot werewolf turns invisible and assassinates you. They can also force enemy AoEs that include them to only actually hit one character at a time, rather than the whole group, by tricking people into thinking they were where they weren't. Halos can also get a passive that permanently lets them ignore enemy Stealth for 4 base Encroachment. They also get not one, but two good Dodge boosts, one of which is cast in setup and boosts all their Dodge dice for the turn, one of which is used immediately to Dodge and thus can be Concentrated. Their ultimates are the ability to make enemy dodges against them have a higher Crit Value (which also means if the enemy was at CV 10, and goes up to CV 11, their dice cannot crit and they're probably hosed), the ability to massively debuff someone's dice on a check right before they make it, reactively, a huge attack boost achieved by splitting into multiple illusions and lasering a fucker from all directions at once, a powerful counter that lets them inflict the damage they just took back on the guy who did it, a no-sell at 120% that lets them say they weren't there to get hit, and a huge attack boost and enemy CV debuff attack boost. For their Pure abilities, they get a huge once per adventure single-target attack boost that can add up to 10 dice to their attack check and renders an enemy unable to Dodge (can be combined with Light Speed Sword to just totally gently caress someone's defense once per adventure) and a reactive debuff where they look at an enemy's check result and say 'you get 5 less'. Pure Abilities usually contain one that turbo-charges something the Syndrome is good at, and one that does something they normally can't. You might notice Halos get no HP buffs, no armor, and no Guard. You'll need another powerset if you want to do anything but Dodge and pray. For fluff powers, they get supersenses of all kinds, the ability to mess around with light for fun, the ability to project a completely holographic and illusionary appearance (one Halo in one of our games was literally never where she looked like she was, habitually), and all kinds of holographic projection. Angel Halos are great assassins, dodgers, and wizards. They're a surprisingly fun power set to add to a lot of different power sets, because what isn't improved by some goddamn lasers? Next Time: The Evil Eye calls you! By which I mean gravity. Gravity happens.
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Dec 18, 2018 23:34
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Is it just me, or is there a delicious similarity between Double Cross and Panic at the Dojo? Also, I want both of them. Too many games, too little time.
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Dec 18, 2018 23:44
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I'll also be trying to keep in mind what power sets can do, without being good at them. With Halo, it's melee. Halos can add some good riders onto a better melee power set (like the assassin moves or Light Speed Sword's anti-guard) but if you don't have a good melee set, don't try to do a hand to hand character with Halo. It's not going to work out.
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Dec 18, 2018 23:49
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Very cool. Angel Halo + Chimera = Beast of Light.
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Dec 19, 2018 00:15
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Black Dog + Exile = the liquid-metal Terminator
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Dec 19, 2018 02:47
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Exile+Stoker: Literally the Thing, like, from the movie. Except it just wants to go to college and study philosophy and be nice to people. This was the main character of one of the games I ran. E: You can get so many wild concepts out of the base genetic superheroes version of the game. It's part of the reason the 'any two Syndromes can work together' and 'They're light on fluff but have just enough for some flavor' approach is great. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 19, 2018 03:01
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I'd run a Balor/Solaris. Tut tut, it's just a question of understanding how physics and chemistry really work.
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Dec 19, 2018 03:07
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The one time I actually got to play, I did a purebreed Morpheus who used the optional character creation to just have Morph Vehicle 5 starting out, because by god, I was going to be a giant robot pilot. An important lesson was learned in that you shouldn't rely on vehicle armor only. But I vote Black Dog+ Hanuman because thunder+lightning and also the fastest thing on two cyberlegs. unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 19, 2018 03:38
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Bram Stroker + Chimera, because finally, you can play an Abomination without any tut-tuts from the designers.
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Dec 19, 2018 03:48
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Hanuman + Chimera = Sonic
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Dec 19, 2018 04:45
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Black Dog & Chimera so I can be Vision.
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Dec 19, 2018 04:50
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The longest DX game I was in, I played a RB moth with Solaris and Orcus. She was super into learning about humanity, chewing on sweaters when she was nervous, and strafing people with acidic scales that could eat through steel.
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Dec 19, 2018 06:08
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Speaking of, I forgot to mention Renegade Beings because they don't come up that often and aren't mechanically that big a deal. Renegade Beings are creatures that weren't originally normal humans. They get an extra little power that raises their Encroachment base by 5, only have 4 available 'jobs' (A B C and D, relating to each of the stats, Body, Sense, Mind, and Social) and get an extra minor power based on their origin. Your average PC Renegade Being wants to learn about and live among humans. They otherwise act just like a normal PC, it's mostly an RP thing if you want to be like the aforementioned infected moth.
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Dec 19, 2018 06:18
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So DX has provisions for being a superpowered houseplant? Excellent.
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Dec 19, 2018 06:20
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PurpleXVI posted:So DX has provisions for being a superpowered houseplant? Excellent. You even get a different character chart for rolling for backstory if you wish. They all have a little extra 'activate this as a Minor for a bonus in the next scene' power from their origin. They can be Animal, which can grant bonuses to fist weapons (which can be a huge deal for a Chimera as it'll stack with their amazing summonable claws), they can be from a 'colony' of organisms (like an infected coral reef turned into a human) which lets them pre-empt status effects before they get hit with them, they can be an infected machine or computer system, which can grant bonuses to Social checks, a human-like body like an artificially grown human or a self-aware blood servant from a Stoker that got away, which grants minor bonuses to all checks when active, a plant, which for some reason buffs Sense checks, a rock, which can grant armor, or an infected legend or the virus trying to come together to ape a rumor or concept, which grants Mind bonuses. They also get a special power they can buy that reduces a target's Encroachment at the cost of increasing theirs by 2x the amount and some other Encroachment fuckery, since they're more closely linked to the virus than an infected human. By stats, this means an infected houseplant can be a truly amazing sniper, potentially.
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Dec 19, 2018 06:26
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Night10194 posted:By stats, this means an infected houseplant can be a truly amazing sniper, potentially. Nobody's better at sitting very still for a really long time. And who would suspect him?
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Dec 19, 2018 06:39
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The extra little 'Humanity's Neighbor' power that they all get protects them a bit from an effect called Impulse, where a shocking revelation or terrible twist in the story forces you to save with Mind and the Will skill or take 2d10 Encroachment and go Berserk (a very hard to cure status effect that disables Dodging and Guarding), but also lets them look human at their wish.
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Dec 19, 2018 06:41
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Night10194 posted:By stats, this means an infected houseplant can be a truly amazing sniper, potentially. Yes, this lines up with JoJo, good.
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Dec 19, 2018 07:07
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Meinberg posted:Yes, this lines up with JoJo, good. And Metal Gear Solid.
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Dec 19, 2018 07:20
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The Lone Badger posted:And Metal Gear Solid. Yeah, it's worth noting that a Renegade Being is going to be something more like The End or a Kemono Friend where they look roughly human than Audrey 2, generally. Edit: Though of course if you want to be literally an ambulatory potted plant you can probably be a potted plant. OvermanXAN fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 19, 2018 08:25
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OvermanXAN posted:Yeah, it's worth noting that a Renegade Being is going to be something more like The End or a Kemono Friend where they look roughly human than Audrey 2, generally. 
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Dec 19, 2018 09:17
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One more because it's fun - Chimera + Black Dog = Project: Metalbeast.
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Dec 19, 2018 14:11
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Double Cross Gravity Blessing Before Balor, we have to talk a little about movement. Movement is generally measured in meters, and is unfortunately based entirely on your Initiative stat. You can generally move Init+5 meters with a Minor, and twice that (as a 'Dash') with a Major. This also means if, say, someone were to drastically lower your Initiative during the Setup phase (I'm not saying Balor does that, but Balor definitely does that) they'd not only make you go last but they'd gently caress your movement. This is, as you might imagine it, fairly important for a class that can be built as either a ranged support character or a 'sticky' fighter who drags enemies into melee with them and doesn't let go. I talk about this because the very first Balor power lets you pick a willing target (or yourself) during the Setup phase and let them perform a Minor action move, for free. You just teleport someone. Their next power gives you Flight (letting you break out of engagements at will, or move over obstacles) and a Levelx5 movement speed bonus for one Minor move, super-jumping with gravity. The Balor cannot fly, but they can jump hella high. They also get Setup timing powers to buff allies' initiative, lower enemies' initiative, some decent melee/physical ranged combat dice boosts (Quick Blade is the only booster they get for that, but Level+1 extra to-hit dice for 3 Encroachment and Max Level 3 isn't bad), some fairly standard base damage boosts that can work on anything using Balor powers...they're not really melee powerhouses on their own, but Balor can contribute a little extra kick to a melee or physical combat build. You're more likely to use your Balor for the initiative fuckery (which cannot, generally, be resisted since it's an Auto action meaning there's no check and it happens in Setup) and some later powers, but if you run out of physical combat stuff from another class picking up stuff like Quick Blade or the high +physical damage (+3 per level) but -2 to-hit dice Giant's Axe isn't a bad idea. They also get a really weird ability where they can use Ranged to throw two melee weapons at someone with gravity, performing a Ranged attack with the combined attack power of the two melee weapons. I've never seen anyone bother because why are you carrying two melee weapons as a Ranged character? And what do you do after they're shattered by gravity and a mutant dinosaur skull? They can also summon a decent gun-type weapon where they call up little gravimetric anomalies and use them as a railgun. More important, Balor are actually great at 'Renegade Control', which again, I'm just going to call Magic because it is. Their basic magic attack is one of the best in the game, doing 2+2xLevel (though with only 5 levels), meaning it's effectively the same as Light Bow except it costs half the EXP to max. Still can't hit targets engaged in melee, but hey. They also get an AoE magic attack that they can use as often as they want, which is unusual, at the cost of it taking 3 dice off their to-hit. It also drags any flying enemy down to earth and does Level base damage, with up to 10 levels. And remember what I said about how 'basic' magic attacks are Target -? That means you can throw Black Hammer (that basic magic attack) in there with that AoE to add its base damage in for only 1 extra Encroach. They can also pump other attacks up into Area (Select) (Most Area attacks are Select, meaning you can pick and choose who in the engagement you toss 'em into gets hit, crushing the 3 mutant dinosaurs but not your werewolf Chimera buddy) as long as they use one Balor power up to 3 times an adventure with Distorted Retribution. They can add a rider to their magic attacks that also drags everyone hit directly into melee with them; if you're a hybrid melee/caster type that could be really nice. They even get a reactive spell that stops an enemy moving in their tracks and wastes their action if they hit them with a magic attack (though as it's a reactive ability you can't combine it with their damage stuff, due to Timing). They also get a couple magic attacks that can't be combined with direct damage, but instead open the enemy hit up to massive damage from allies or prevent them from dodging or reacting to the next attack that comes for them by fixing them in place with physics fuckery. They can even add a rider to an attack (any attack that uses at least one Balor power) that completely reduces an enemy's Init to 0 until they spend a Minor Action struggling through the crazy gravity field they're trapped in, or add in something that inflicts Rigor, which prevents a character moving at all until it's cured. Balor hates your movement powers and wants you to get squished. But they're not done yet. I told you they're tough, and they are. They don't have any way to give themselves more HP within their Syndrome (which is kind of a weakness for Guard tanking, but hey, you can get another Syndrome) but they get 4 different damage reduction powers outside of their ultimates that are all quite solid. One is our first encounter with a 'Reduce Expected HP Damage' power; this means it's a damage reducer that you throw on after Dodge/Guard has been resolved and after you know how much damage was about to be done. Repulsion Field will reduce damage to a character by d10+(2xlevel), with 5 levels. It can be cast on allies; say your buddy just hosed up a Dodge and is on the verge of getting one-shot. You can throw on Repulsion Field because you already know how much damage they're going to take and you've calculated you can keep them from dropping. You can also cast it on yourself. Its only real drawback is you can only use it once a round. Several Syndromes have similar and these powers are always great. Rampart of the Void is a simple 2 Encroach for 3 per level Guard, max level 3. It's more useful if you're Pure and it can go to 5, but it's not bad as an extra bit of cheap Guard. Gravity Guard is another Max 3 power that gives d10 Guard per level for 3 Encroach. This is the bread and butter Guard defense for Balors; a couple other Syndromes get similar. Once again, I'm sure you can see a Pure would get way more out of it, too; those 2 extra levels would matter a lot. Finally, Fiend's Shield is what I call an emergency Guard. You only get to use it once a battle, but it grants 10xLevel Guard, max level 3. 30 extra Damage Reduction without rolling can be the difference between getting blown away and being unhurt, depending on your HP. Finally, Balor has our first 'auto-counter' in Dark Spiral, where they can once-per-round counter-attack while Guarding for 5xlevel damage (up to 5 levels) in melee. This is also the highest damage auto-guard in the game; most are 3xlevel. They can also pull an enemy AoE attack that targets the Balor and several allies into only targeting the Balor. Finally, the Ults and Pure abilities. For one of their 80%'s, Time Freeze, they can take 20 damage to make a move during the Initiative phase, which does NOT take up their turn during the main phase. They can only do this once an adventure, but as you know, action economy fuckery is amazing. Their other 80 is the 'enemy cannot react to the next attack that hits them if this hits' lockdown move. They also just straight up get ZA WARUDO with Time Casket at 100. It costs 10 Encroach and you're already hot, and you can only do it once, but you just stop time for a second and declare an enemy's action fails as they try to do it. Great for shutting down someone else's high heat once per battle supermove. Their other 100% spell adds a rider to any Balor using power combo that inflicts a -3xLevel (max level 3) dice penalty on everything a target does for the rest of the round, unless the target gets a turn and spends their Minor struggling free. Their first 120% lets them completely ignore the HP damage from one attack for 4d10 Encroach, just like one of Halo's. Their second is a massive AoE damage spell for 4d10 Encroach at 120 where they just cause (5+Level)d10 damage (max 5) to every foe in an Area Select, no attack check, no accuracy check, no chance to avoid the attack or Guard it. Finally, their Pures are amazing: They get one that lets them ignore 'you can't use this in melee' restrictions while giving +Level dice to the attack for 2 extra Encroach an attack by bending space to make them far away and close at the same time, and they get an extra one that lets them turn any Balor using attack into an Area (Select) attack up to Level times per battle. Note they can use that on, say, their Initiative buffs and debuffs in Setup to gently caress with or boost entire parties or groups. Balor combos really well with a lot of power sets and concepts. They're not great at physical ranged combat; if you're comboing them with physical combat you probably want to pair them with melee. The reason is because if you want to do ranged combat with them, just lean on their awesome magic abilities and take something like Salamandra to make their damage bigger. You're already a space time wizard, why not ALSO summon the sun on guys and be a true cosmic star sorcerer? Still, all their fuckery with movement and initiative and their ability to drag people close and keep them there, plus the tanking potential, makes them very good when combined with a melee focused Syndrome. The problem, of course, is that setting up all this stuff costs a lot of EXP. Still, they do a lot of cool and useful positional fuckery. Also note a Balor has no Dodge options at all. But with great Guard, why would you need them? Also no ability to summon armor. You'll have to rely on buying body armor, which we'll get into when we get to Procurement. Their simples let you do stuff like walk on walls, keep things from spilling with gravity, slow down time so you can goof off or buy a few extra hours to write your term paper, prematurely age carpet and wallpaper, make a bag of holding, sense people by gravity's effect on them, have a perfect sense of velocity, and of course, float leisurely through the air rather than bother walking, because 'moving at a leisurely pace without the fetters of gravity is the mark of a true tyrant!' in the book's words. Next Up: Full Metal Anime Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 19, 2018 16:00
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I've got to listen to something fun on my commute. Every single podcast episode I listen to makes me grind my teeth into dust while I think about skinning Paul Ryan alive. System Mastery: Kult Oh thank God.
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Dec 19, 2018 16:11
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Double Cross Summon Linear Cannon! Black Dog is a weird Syndrome. It can work with almost any concept; gunner, melee brawler, wizard. It works well Pure. It works well comboed with almost anyone. This is because what it does is grant you permanent cybernetic buffs in return for permanent increases in Encroachment. It also controls magnets, lightning, and general technomancy. I've also fluffed it as everything from 'overwhelming, constant physical strength' to 'empowered by a bunch of charms and scribed trinkets reflecting the Wisdom of the Most High', so don't feel too wedded to cybernetics if you have some other idea for how you get permanent power ups. Let's talk about the bevy of Cybernetics powers first. Cyber Leg permanently increases your movement speed for 3 Encroach, but more importantly, permanently lets you break out of Engagement with enemies with a single Minor move. The move speed isn't nearly as important as 'I can just dodge out of zones of control with my cyber legs'. Cyber Arm turns your Fists from Damage -5 weapons to Damage 4, Guard 5 weapons that still count as Fists for purposes of moves that can only use Fists. For reference, that's about the stats of a normal broadsword. You can continue to improve them up to damage 13 if you want to go hard on the EXP, making your unarmed punch constantly as strong as a bigass axe. 3 more Encroach for that. Lightweight Customization gives a permanent +1 to Sense and Body (breaking the normal 10/20/whatever soft caps) for 2 Encroach as you improve your body's general function. Weapon Installation lets you pick out a weapon (cost and quality determined by levels in the power) to install into yourself, always having it available and being able to draw it in an instant, for 2 Encroach. Pain Editor is just +5 HP per level, up to 5 levels, for 3 Encroach. And finally, Hard Wired is the signature move of the Black Dog Syndrome. For every level you buy in Hard Wired (up to 5) you get one special cybernetic item slot. For each slot, you can equip a solid Arm Blade that does Damage 9 and breaks enemy Guard by 5 or a Linear Cannon that does Damage 8 and penalizes enemy Dodge by 2, or you can spend slots 1 to 1 on +2 to check results with an attack skill, +2 to Guard rating, or +5 to max HP. You can swap these every session, and with GM permission, can change them out between fights. This is kind of Black Dog's signature thing, being customizable and adaptable. Some power sets have a power that's very 'if you don't pick this up why do you have this Syndrome' and Hard Wired is just that for Black Dog. I'm sure you can see the value of those permanent buffs, depending on who you're playing and what you want to focus on. Black Dogs also get a solid, but costly basic magic attack from Lightning Spear (slightly more powerful than Balor's Black Hammer but costs 2 Encroachment) and a very solid base AoE magic attack that they can only use Level times per fight. They can also add Daze riders to their physical attacks (Dazed gives someone -2 to everything for one turn) by tasering people, or shock someone so bad it effectively poisons them (only with physical Ranged, for some reason). They also get an interesting physical attack boost that buffs the final score of a check rather than adding dice, in addition to very basic +dice physical boosts. They also get an even better Init booster than Balor, with the caveat that they can only use it to buff themselves. They get a really poor self-heal (but better than nothing) that can only be used once per turn, some good Guards that are almost on par with Balor's, and the option to use magic to Dodge. They can get up downed allies who can't res, or hugely buff a single allied action, and they really sound like do everything types, don't they? You're probably asking yourselves, where's the drawback? The drawbacks are twofold: One, you kind of want to specialize on doing one or two general things very well. You're not going to want to build a melee character who is good with guns and a wizard at the same time, so you're only going to use part of your Syndrome no matter what. Two, their Ults and Pure abilities are kind of a letdown. That's not the worst weakness to have, mind you; having your super awesome amazing abilities you can only use once or twice not be as great in return for a very solid and consistent base of ability is potentially a good trade. One of their Restrict 80s just gives +10 damage for -1 dice of accuracy, Level times per adventure. Another removes all options for DR from an enemy level times per adventure against physical attacks; Barrier Cracker just knocking out Armor and Guard is very useful against a tank character though it does nothing to stop Dodge. Full Installation at 100% pops you into a cybernetic hyper-mode where you get Lv+3 Dice as a bonus to everything for one turn (once per scene, max 3). Poltergeist lets you wield an extra weapon (destroying it in the process) and add its Attack rating to everything you do for the rest of a scene. Electromagnetic Response Armor blocks 20 damage per use and can be used more than once on one attack, but costs 10 Encroach per use and can only be used Level times a scenario (max 5). Kind of lame for a no-sell ability at 120%. Their ultimate is a self-destruct. When you get downed at 120, declare you're activating it and it'll do exactly like the crazy singularity from Balor. You don't actually die, mind you. You're still just downed and will get back up at the end of the fight if no-one takes the time to walk over and deliberately kill you. Their Pures let them do extra damage equal to the damage they've taken, but drop immediately after doing it (they have a thing for self destructing) and once per battle make a magic attack hit the whole scene exactly like Stardust Rain in Halo. Their simples are all technomancy stuff, like being able to plug devices into their own body to power them. They can pick up internet or generate a wi-fi hotspot with their brain. They can brick someone's harddrive with a touch. They can kill the power or open electronic locks with their fingers, jam radio transmissions, play DVDs with their eyes, and hide stuff in their cybernetics. You might notice they seem a little simpler than the other two. Part of this is having less base mechanics to describe; I've already been over them. Part of it is that Black Dog focuses on flexibility. Whatever you want to do, there's something in Black Dog that will help out with it. Whatever other power set you had in mind, Black Dog can help it out somehow, even if you're going to use it as a pretty secondary Syndrome. Similarly, a Pure Black Dog gets more levels of their permanent boosts, and is well set up to make a character who can actually do more than one thing and adapt their stats to various situations. They even have the unusual option of building a character who focuses a lot on static check result boosts rather than dice boosts; if you maxed Attack Program (the +2 to check resolution per level powered physical) and Hard Wired, then put 10 points in Melee Skill, you can build a character who's punching people on a 38 before they even roll dice without even breaking any soft caps. In a game where you're limited some by EXP and having to choose what to do, having a jack of all trades powerset who can supplement whatever the character wanted to specialize in without too much muss or fuss is a nice option. Next Time: Draculas
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Dec 19, 2018 17:14
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I gotta say, been listening to them since like episode 5 and System Mastery has been one of the most consistently good podcasts around. Right up there with History of Rome/Revolutions and Inward Empire.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:37
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Double Cross Noble Blood Alright, Brahm Stoker is going to take some goddamn time to go over. They're one of the singularly weirdest and most complex powersets because they're going to make me go over their pet rules. You don't actually have to play a pet user to be a Stoker; they get a bunch of other useful stuff where they can trade HP to summon powerful gear or perform big attacks as is. But the pet class stuff is their big unique selling point. To get started on pet shenanigans, you take the Red Servant power. Creating a Red Servant costs 5 Encroach and a Major action, and if you have any Servants on the field you take -3 dice to all actions while they're up. You can also specifically only create one at a time. They initially have all stats at 3 and only 10+(5xRed Servant Power Level) max HP. You can normally only make one and they only last for one Scene or fight. This sounds pretty bad, right? Well. Firstly, you can take Red River Valet, which raises every Servant's stats by 1 per level (max level 5) at the cost of increasing your base Encroach by 7 permanently. You can take Life's Blood, which is basically Pain Editor but for Servants, to buff their HP further at the cost of +2 permanent Encroach. You can take Blood Bonds to let you make a Servant last until the end of the adventure instead of the battle, at a cost of +3 Encroach per Servant you summon. You can take The Voiceless to have extra Servant capacity, up to level 3 and 3 more Servants. One of the Ultimates for Stoker summons multiple Servants at once with Army of Fools, at 100% Encroachment. You can take a power that gives your Servants gear, or one that lets them use normal guns and knives and stuff. But they still don't sound too impressive, do they? The real kicker with a Servant is every Servant created A: Goes on your Initiative, taking their turn with you and B: Has all its masters' powers. That includes all your passives, the ability to summon weapons, things like Cyber Arm, etc. Say you bought Pain Editor to 5 as a Black Dog-Stoker so that you'd be tougher; all your Servants get the same +25 HP. Say you're a Chimera-Stoker and you have crazy powered physical attacks. All your Servants can use them. Servants don't get Skills, so they have less static resolution to work with, but a character who has put a lot of effort into Servants is essentially casting Summon Miniboss every time they use it. The catch is, this is really, REALLY heat and EXP intensive. Buying up all your servant's powers and stuff is expensive and raises your baseline Encroachment. And even moreso: While your Servants break the action economy some, you pay for everything they do. Used a powered attack? It adds to your Encroachment. So you're going to shoot up the heat scale and might end up in a very dangerous place very quickly. A Servant-based Stoker who has decided they don't give a gently caress if they overheat is one of the most dangerous character types in the game. If you have a limited number of uses for a power during a session or battle, your Servants using it counts as one of your uses. You can burn through that kind of resource really quickly with Servants. Outside of creating horrible clone monsters/combat drones/whatever you've fluffed Servants as, Stoker is a grab bag of heavily offense and HP based abilities. They have lots of abilities that have the kicker 'you pay some HP, but the ability is pretty strong' when it comes to buffing their attacks and summoning gear. They have some of the best summoned weaponry and armor in the game, except it costs a lot of HP unless you're a major HP specialist. Their Crimson Sword, for instance, can be Attack Power 17 (which is very high) at level 5. However, the catch is as well as paying Encroachment, you also pay up to Levelx3 HP to summon it, then get a weapon that has a power equal to (HP you paid+2). They can do the same for their freaky blood armor, at similar costs and an armor value of (spent HP+3). So someone summoning both armor and sword at max level would spend 30 HP, which isn't insignificant. To regain HP, they have a self-heal that doesn't cost actions but can only be activated in the end of round cleanup, and they have Thirsting Lord, kind of their signature attack. They use Fists only to hit someone and ignore their armor, but recover 4xLevel HP if they do any damage, because they drink your fluids (that's what the book says). They also get some DoTs and things based around poisoning peoples' blood. They also get a weird ability where they can rez a dead non-Overed character, which will generally turn them into a superhuman at GM's discretion. Perfect for when something really unfortunate happens to one of your Loises. They get a Dodge that uses the Will skill and Mind stat, if they want it, and no actual Guards, but one of those 'reduce expected damage' powers just like Balor. The catch is they can only use it on themselves. A Pure Stoker is going to be relying on their Servants covering them and taking heat for them, because the actual Syndrome doesn't give them poo poo for defenses for the most part. Their ultimates are a huge attack boost in return for losing 5 HP per strike at 80, a poison debuff rider that adds +1 to someone's next Critical Value at 80 by loving with their blood, a huge dice boost to their next action at cost of some HP at 100, the aforementioned 'call multiple Servants at once' power at 100, our first auto-recover at 120 with Eternal Life (get back up with 10xLevel HP when knocked down at 120%, once per adventure), which takes a little explaining. See, the value of that is, if you're over 100 you normally can't rez. This lets you get back up one more time when you're over your danger zone, probably while bloodily putting yourself back together because you're an anime vampire. Finally, they get a 'straight up take a second turn' power at 120 for 20 Encroachment. You don't take the second turn immediately with Night Devil's Domain; you declare it right after you finish your current turn, then it knocks you down to 0 Init for the rest of the round and you go again after everyone else. Still powerful, still useful. The Pure abilities for the Stoker are an extremely powerful auto-counter (hits a guy back for Lvx10 damage when you take damage, usable once per battle, max level 3 but you're Pure so it goes up to 5) and a passive that reduces the HP cost of any and all Stoker powers by its level (max level of 3, 5 because you're Pure) at cost of +3 base Encroachment. That can take the edge off your blood magic pretty well. You also get a bunch of Servant powers, which you can buy but only the Servants can use, unless you use one of the other powers called Bloody Warhorse to take one of your Servants out of the game to grant you all their powers. Whether this is you merging with them like a Guyver suit or just riding the monster you made is up to you. Servant Powers are pretty basic stuff, meant to fill in holes left by your Syndrome choices for your Servants. They do include a really good Dodge boost, so that plus Bloody Warhorse can solve your defensive problem if you're a Pure Stoker or something. They include very basic ranged boosts, melee boosts, a basic 'make the Servant's attack AoE Lv. Number of times a battle', the ability to make your Servants fly, the ability to make Servants arrive with fancy armored outfits and weapons or whatever you want to fluff Fool's Equipment as, and the ability to use them as living bombs. Yep, you can make your Servants self destruct for you, doing a heavy AoE attack with magic. The Simples for our good old draculas are about what you'd expect. They can 'clean out old and polluted blood, replacing it with healthy fresh blood' (?) to remain youthful and energetic at all times, they can create specific copy clones to sit in line for them at the DMV, they can make blood sculptures but I'm not really sure why you would, they can track by blood, make themselves better at mundane things by precisely controlling heartrate and blood flow, they can read everything about you from tasting your blood, and they can summon a seemingly real entourage of lesser Servants to follow them around and tell everyone how great they are. Yes, the vampires get a 'create toady swarm' spell. It's called Emperor's New Clothes. Oh, vampires. You do you. Next Time: CHIMERA SMASH
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Dec 19, 2018 20:25
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One of the pre-gens (who in the core book all have misprints, I think) is a Bram Stoker/Exile. While I forget what the gimmick of the actual pre-gen is supposed to be, now I just have an image of razor-sharp blood tentacles like a hemophiliac Doctor Octopus.
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Dec 19, 2018 22:33
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Exile/Stoker: Dr. Octopus Exile/Solaris: Dr. Octagon
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Dec 19, 2018 22:36
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Given Exiles are the HP guys, I can see them comboing really well with Stoker to allow for a very powerful sacrificial attacker build.
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Dec 20, 2018 03:47
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OvermanXAN posted:Given Exiles are the HP guys, I can see them comboing really well with Stoker to allow for a very powerful sacrificial attacker build. The Exile-Stoker in one of my games was insanely, insanely hard to kill. Especially as you can actually order Servants to take a hit for you (and they count as Guarding while doing it) and with some powers, they won't give up their turn to do so. One of the interesting things is that the game CAN be rocket-taggy, and Rez is a solution to that (you can't just get alpha striked turn 1 if you aren't high heat, because getting back up with Rez doesn't even cost an action), but if you actually try to be durable, you will be durable. Similarly, the healing specialists (who we haven't seen yet) can actually heal meaningfully to help an HP focused teammate.
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Dec 20, 2018 03:59
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Fear not, RPG-starved masses! I have travelled many a mile from the far off kingdom of “The 70s” and come bearing... The Wilderlands of High Fantasy | Part VI: Points of Light Last time we finished up the loose bits and bobs of character options and, while they didn’t hit the comically inept levels of the new classes, it was still very clearly made by people who had no idea how the D20 System was even theoretically work. The good news is that we’re done with all of that mechanically broken nonsense for the time being and are about to dive into the fluff hardcore in the Map Overview section! Despite entering into this with flashbacks to the calendar system and impenetrable timeline that the book opened with I was pleasantly surprised by this section! Not only did it give a clear and concise overview of the general locations and civilizations of The Wilderlands, it also sprinkled in some nice little hints at things we haven’t directly encountered that players can expect to face and, in all honestly, did a pretty good job of getting me hyped to gently caress around in this setting. Why didn’t they put this in the first chapter?! Now, I can hear some of you readers out there jabbering amongst yourselves: “What map?”. This map:  And this map that splits it into separate regions:  This thing’s sort of the centerpiece of the Wilderlands box set this book is part of: a 19"x28" printed hexmap of The Wilderlands setting as a whole. We’ve yet to get there, but the other book in this big ol’ boxset is a 500 page doorstopper intended for the GM that is almost entirely composed of descriptions of what is in each and every one of those 30,000+ hexes. Judges Guild may well have been staffed by the criminally insane but damned if they weren’t thorough… But all that comes further down the line. Right now we’re just getting a rough elevator pitch about each of the 18 regions the map is divided into, starting with the top lefthand corner of the map and… The Elphand Lands The big point of interest in this region is the Irminsul Forest, which we’re told is the largest in all of the Wilderlands and serves as a general symbol to how wild and untamed this area is, even by the low standards of “civilized” established in The Wilderlands. Towns are few and far between and most of the human population not living in villages are cavemen. That’s not a description of their level of advancement or anything, I mean they are literal club-swinging, triceratops riding cavemen. The biggest epicenter of civilization within this region is the city of Damkina, which lies on an island in the middle of the Vast Lake. This area is ruled by the Lord of the White Throne who is said to be a remnant of an ancient empire. This area also shares its southern border with the kingdom of Viridistan, who you may remember from previous installments as being ruled by some weird green rear end in a top hat nobody likes. Said green rear end in a top hat has established some of his forces in the South of the Elphand Lands where they have learned how to ride mastodons and be generally awesome. A lot of Amazons also hang out in this area, riding sabretooth tigers and posing for Frank Frazetta paintings. Valon This region is named after its most major city state: Which happens to be the place where those smug-rear end blue wizards we read about in the Races section hang out. The Wizards of Valon are generally tight with the local Sea Elves and their mystical undersea kingdom (Which I’m assuming is just The Little Mermaid 24/7). While the other two northern sections of the map also border The Great Glacier north of the Wilderlands, Valon is notable as being the inhabited city that lies closest to The Glacier. This area is pretty heavily focused on sea travel so there are a few island-faring cities to the south that are good hubs for adventure, including Malikarr “The City of Alchemists”, which, from what we know Alchemists, I assume looks like the industrial district of New Dehli on a good day...That’s apparently not enough to keep everyone away, though, as the city is also home to the renowned band of pirates: The Brotherhood of Sea Tigers. There’s also rumoured to be a lost Dwarven city of legend somewhere out in the mountains, but overland travel is especially rough in this region, so good luck. The Valley of the Ancients Remember all that weird nonsense from the timeline about dragon empires and Markrabs and other stuff that happened tens of thousands of years before your characters were even born? This is where all the detritus from that got dumped! This place is often shrouded in fog of varying levels of mystery and is crammed full of ruins of ancient civilizations. We’re told only Rangers and Druids really tend to go particularly deep into this area because we’re told much of the land is supposed to be “poisoned” with no further explanation. While it’s not called out in the blurb in this section I have it on good authority that this is the area of the Wilderlands that has the most 70s Sci Fi bleed-over in the form of ancient astronaut-style ancient spaceships and stuff. This area is also home to the Glow Worm Steppes, named for the species of gigantic, bio-luminescent worms that make their home there. Viridistan This is where that green rear end in a top hat folks call a World Emperor hangs out! He and his wife are the last of the Viridians (And presumably have more chromosomes than the entire cast of The Hills Have Eyes) and rule the area with an iron fist but their empire has been in a state of slow decline for centuries now. Owing to the whole “established dictatorship” thing, this is one of the few areas of The Wilderlands that actually have roads that are maintained and patrolled sometimes! There are a few other political powers of note in and around Viridistan that aren’t directly associated with the World Emperor: Deep under the Trident Gulf live the Merfolk of the Kingdom of Sea Laamer, who presumably are doing pretty well because The World Emperor can’t breathe underwater, while The Marmon Witches make their home in the swamps North of Viridistan and are freaky and powerful enough that even the World Emperor gives them a wide berth. While Viridistan is still incredibly wild and untamed by modern standards, it’s probably the closest you can get to “urban” or “settled” in The Wilderlands. The City State of the Invincible Overlord The first region detailed in the original Wilderlands products and the region from which the entire setting was birthed. This place, despite supposedly being more primal and untamed than Viridistan, is absolutely ripe with important locations: You’ve got the City State itself, as well as the cities of Warwick, Thunderhold, Modron, and Ossary. Also of note is the great Dearthwood forest, where those racist barbarian woodsmen from the character options section are perpetually duking it out with Orcs. The plains to the South are home to the nomadic Tharbrians, who you may recall from the timeline as “Those guys who sacked the City State of the World Emperor so much he had to summon a bunch of demons to get rid of them”, and once you get out along the coast you’re probably going to run into a bunch of patrolling Skandik ships because why not throw vikings into this mess while we’re at it? This area was supposedly once an important part of both the Empire of Kelnore and the Orichalan Empire, and is thus littered with ancient and ruined structures, perfect for wandering murderhobos to go exploring! Overall it’s pretty obvious this is most parties’ assumed starting point and they’ve made sure to throw a bunch of loving story hooks and cultures within spitting distance. Tarantis We’re not given too much info on this region: It consists of the titular city state of Tarantis and a bunch of surrounding provinces ruled by sultans. A major trade hub, it is home to btoh The Tarantine Merchants’ Association and a shittonne of pirates, notably the infamous captain known as The Sea Hawk. On the shore opposite Tarantis is the remains of the former capital of the Empire of Kelnore, probably full of wizard treasure. Tarantis also does a lot of trade with the far off (As in “Not on this map”) kingdom of Karak and thus gets a bunch of magic poo poo from them. Desert Lands Having apparently run out of actual names for these regions at this point, the production team stuck a vague placeholder title on this one and called it done. The only real things of note here are The Holy Cities: A place of great spiritual importance that is currently occupied by The World Emperor, and a group of humanoids called The Dorins who hang out in the deserts and are apparently adapted to such conditions. I was secretly sort of hoping there wouldn’t actually be any deserts in this place, just to be cheeky. Barbarian Altanis Presumably named by a Judges Guild employee who relished the chance to push up his glasses before smugly correcting people every time they called it “Barbarian Atlantis”, this area is home to a bunch of Conans with skin like the guy on the Red Hots box. While most of the Altanians live in small villages and nomadic tribes the area is littered with ruins suggesting a more advanced civilization once lived here. Most people assume it was part of the old Kingdom of Kelnore but I choose to believe the Altanians used to have skyscrapers and poo poo and just sort of got bored with it. We’re told the area has “a varied terrain” with forests to the north and...jungles to the south: I feel like those area basically the same terrain, just at different temperatures. Ebony Coast Uh oh, I don’t like the sound of that name. Does more Robert E. Howard-style racism lie within these foreboding lands? Apparently not! This region is heavily forested and home to a bunch of deposits of stuff like petroleum,, coal and peat with which the locals make explosives! There are actually a bunch of roads that have been extended into this region so neighboring areas can get their hands on those sweet sweet boom sticks. The description really goes out of its way to describe this place as uncharacteristically safe and well patrolled, though I’d assume their definition of “safe” has the caveat of “If you ignore all the explosions”. Lenap It was one of the Ghinor successor states but has kind of fallen into the shitter, though the blurb doesn’t give us details. I assume it has something to do with the general topography being classified as “murderous”. A desert to the north keeps the area isolated and a combination of jungles, volcanoes and something called the “Churning Sea” make this a nightmare to travel through. That said they apparently export a lot of herbs and plants and poo poo for Alchemists to get high on! Isles of the Blest Basically imagine someone took Earthsea and fit it into a small sea: Just islands as far as the eye can see. You pretty much have to sail through here if you want to get anywhere so it’s a major hub of sea trade with all the pirates that come with that. The peninsula in the North of this region is believed to have once been part of the land of Orchan, original home to the Orichalans who created the Dragon Empire and are hated by everyone for vague reasons. Isles of the Dawn The region gets its name because locals believe that Apollo’s chariot emerges from the nearby sea each day to ride through the sky, in actuality there’s just a bunch of glowing fish that live out in that area that everyone assumes is the sun because they’re stupid. That’s about all there is to this region: It’s mostly ocean, there aren’t any major political powers in the area, and the most action it tends to see is the occasional trader sailing from the Kingdoms of Karak to the East. Sea of Five Winds Another region that is notably wild and unsettled, even by the standards of the Wilderlands. Most of the mainland is covered by dense as gently caress forests that only the foolish dare to traverse. The Vastern Canyon in the northern part of this region is supposed to be rich in mineral deposits but nobody’s been able to reliably trek out there to find out. The only major point of interest is the City of Tlan, which was once one of the Ghinor Successor States but is going through a crappy period ala Lenap. Ghinor Hey, it’s that place from what sprang all those successor states! These Successor States were created when a prince of the Kelnore Empire united a bunch of cities and split off. If the descriptions from the other regions are to be believe this didn’t work out so well in the long term: Basically the only remnants of the Successor States are the ones mentioned in other regions and the City State of Chim, which was abandoned ages ago and has only recently been resettled by a bunch of weirdo Dwarves. The surrounding jungles are teeming with the ruins of the toppled Ghinoran States and also those crap-rear end cannibal Dwarves no one would want to play as. Silver Skein Isles There are two major factions in this region: The CIty of Ralu, a formerly hidden city that has only recently emerged into the public eye and become a major player, and Tula, the place where all the Wizards live and things considered weird even by Wilderland standards just casually walk the streets. Ralu is perpetually in a standoff with Tula, presumably because they are just loving fed up with those whack-rear end Chromatic Wizards and all their Wizard poo poo! Remember kids: Wizards have no concern for good or evil! Ament Tundra The Southernmost point in the territory of the Altanian nomads (Which is a hell of a territory considering Altanis was, like, eight regions ago!). This place is a wild, desolate wasteland of forest, mountains and tundra. Demons from the Demon Empire to the far South or the Demon-Giant kingdoms to the far West used to trounce through here to raid the rest of the Widlerlands, but it’s been ages since anyone last saw them. Ghinor Highlands Home to the proud Ironfoot Dwarves, who believe themselves to be the one true rulers of the region but are pretty chill if people want to hang out. I guess it’s just a status thing for them? This place is also home to the Joyful Demon Hills, which were named when a bunch of imps who had been exiled from the Demon Empires to the South showed up and were all “We live here now! I hope you’re cool with that!”. Exiles from the Demon Empire are supposedly reasonably common in these parts. Southern Reaches Finishing off the Wilderlands in the Southeastern corner is the Southern Reaches: A region that has pretty much nothing of note to say about it! Seriously, the book outright tells us this place has been peaceful because there’s nothing here for the Demon Empire to raid! Off the Map! There have been a few regions alluded to in the above write-ups that aren’t actually on the map. The book helpfully groups them together here and gives a little bit of detail. The Kingdom of Karak The Empire to the far East that is basically a mashup of Mongolia, China and other parts of Asia. In contrast to The Wilderlands this empire has been going strong for the past 20,000 years and generally thinks of The Wilderlands as being a savage and backwards place. The people around these parts are 110% about horses: They learn to ride pretty much before they can walk and I am assuming their economy is heavily dependent on the production and sale of inspirational horse posters. When not making and selling these posters they also like making magic-poo poo like scarves and robes that change colors. They most commonly worship gods from the Indian pantheon, though the evil ones are apparently the most popular. The book seems to keep mentioning these guys are usually Neutral or Evil but I don’t really get that impression from the write-up as they just seem like rad horse fetishists who don’t really give a gently caress about The Wilderlands. The Great Glacier This is what you’ll find to the North of The Wilderlands: A giant-rear end, “v”-shaped glacier that nobody can cross. This thing is massive, to the point that it’s rumoured to spread to the end of the world, though there are rumours of lands that lie beyond it. While The Glacier is daunting, it has been slowly receding over the years. The Ice Wizards of Valon apparently carved a school into this thing at some point and there’s supposed to be a hidden shrine to the avalonian ice god Aram Kor. Other than that we’re told it’s mostly just filled with “Ice worms, shaggy cavemen, yeti and other monstrosities”... The Demon Empires So, these guys came up in the blurbs for the Southernmost regions as an empire far to the South that used to regularly raid the Wilderlands. That title is not actually symbolic or metaphorical, this is an empire populated entirely by demons. Sorry, let me correct that: This is TWO empires populated solely by demons. So,. this civilization supposedly got its start when the demons bred by the ancient Markrabs had enough of that poo poo and rebelled. They fled to the south where the planar membrane is weakest and fire elementals occasionally leak through to the material plane. This place is actually pretty diverse and creatures of almost any stripe will be tolerated as citizens so long as they’re down with the empire. However, things are not all sunshine and lollipops as one might expect in the Demon Empires: There’s an ongoing civil war between two factions that keeps the populace pretty occupied. The Empire as a whole is centered around the gigantic impact crater of a meteor that struck the planet in ages past. On one side is the western kingdom of the Horned Lands, ruled by a God of Chaos who used to war with the gods of law in ages past but apparently got bored of that and decided to just rule over a bunch of demons. Meanwhile, in the east, we have the faction inhabiting “The Abyss” aka “The Chaos Lands” (Yes, the faction inhabiting The Chaos Lands is the one not ruled by a chaos god) and is the faction that actually retained the “Demon Empire” epithet. They’re also on the side of the crater that’s been filled with water and, due to the underwater cavern that constantly disgorges a naptha-like substance into it, become known as The Searing Sea. The Demon Empires are usually too busy with their own internal struggles to pay much heed to the kingdoms to the North and are not much of a sea power due to the nearest body of water being almost constantly on fire but Gordzu-Kor, the most recent emperor of the Chaos Lands, has apparently been building a fleet to cross the Searing Sea to make trouble in The Wilderlands. While this is supposed to be an ominous note I somehow don’t see this ending well what with the Searing Sea being constantly on fire. So, it only took a third of the book but we’re finally getting to stuff that actually sounds interesting and like something players would actually care about! Let’s see if they can keep this party-train rolling in the next chapter where we look at the cities of The Wilderlands in a bit more detail, starting with The City State of the Invincible Overlord...
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Dec 20, 2018 05:38
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Double Cross Awaken, my power! Chimera is one of the simplest Syndromes in the game. It's focused, it's effective, and it lets you turn into a giant monster and hit people with a car. If you want phenomenal super strength via shapeshifting, Chimera is your Syndrome. Chimera focuses exclusively on melee, but it does it in some interesting ways and has some really unique power options that get across the flavor of being a massive physical titan, so it's still a lot of fun to play. If you don't want to put people through buildings up close and personal, Chimera isn't going to add much to your Syndrome mix. First, Chimera has a sort of 'signature' power in the sense of 'if you don't have this, why do you have Chimera': Complete Therianthropy. This is your 'turn into a battle mode' power, which transforms your entire body into your combat form, whatever you've decided that is. Unless you also take Intelligent Beast (which makes using Therianthropy cost 2 more Encroach, and it already costs 6), you can't use weapons while transformed, only your fists. However, you also have the best Fist summon in the game (Reaming Claw, which starts at 9 base damage and tops out at 18 at level 10) so that might not be a big deal for you. What you get in return is 2+Level Body dice, to everything that involves Body, for the rest of the scene you transformed. The max level is 3, though a Pure can go up to 5 as per usual for Pures. This means your average Chimera is going to be throwing around +5 dice on all Body checks without paying further Encroach after their one-time transformation cost. Remember Body is also used for physical Dodging. IF you can get an active Dodge power from another Syndrome (like Hanuman or Exile, we'll get to them) a Chimera can be a lightning fast dodger as well as a tremendously powerful physical attacker. The general physical superiority that Therianthropy gives is amazing; I have a Chimera-Exile in one of my games right now who is regularly throwing around 22 dice on her basic attack combo. As you might imagine that's both hard to dodge and likely to give pretty high bonus damage from attack resolution. Since they get that huge ongoing buff from Therianthropy, Chimera doesn't really do +Dice powered attacks; they don't need to. They're effectively using one on every attack when they're in Therianthropy. Instead, they get a bunch of sources of +Damage. They have one very cheap 1 point attack that's a bit EXP inefficient but very Encroach Efficient called Nameless Blade that only works with fists/claws (Adds Lv+1 damage, max 10), and the very solid Beasts's Strength (+2 damage a level, max 5, melee attacks only). They can Lock On, declaring their target at start of the round to get a big damage boost against them. They get the best Flight power, too: Hawk's Wings gives the Chimera Flight as long as they want it and also gives them +Lv Dodge dice for a whole scene. Sky's Ruler gives +2 damage per level (up to 5) while Flying, too, and anyone they hit with it gets knocked out of the sky, themselves. This means a Chimera can be surprisingly hard to pin down and flying around dunking other people out of the sky and giving those on the ground aerial piledrivers. Part of DX's solution to 'people run away from the single classed melee fighter' is 'The single classed melee fighter gets a Fly power'. They can also add a tremendous amount of movement with Centuar's Legs, which gives 5-25 extra movement a turn depending on level, to make up for probably having low Init. Chimera can also get two excellent Guard Breaks: One of them adds to the Chimera's +5 per level attack power (max lv 5) if you Guard against them (and can keep adding to it, making them do more damage than if you hadn't Guarded, if it's higher than your Guard stats). The other Grapples you and debuffs your Guard stat for the rest of the round by 5 per level (max lv 5). A dedicated Guard Break Chimera can blow an enemy tank away by a mixture of sheer damage and holding them down for the rest of the party to hit them. They also get a reactive debuff, Hell Beast's Roar, where the Chimera flexes really hard or yells and scares someone about to make a move into losing some dice, once per round (and at high Encroach cost, 4). They can do the same to reduce someone's attack power right before they hit the Chimera. Chimeras get multiple powers about being so physically imposing that they make it harder to attack them. Chimeras aren't totally without defenses. They get a very odd power called Dragon's Scales that lets them gain lvx10 Armor (max lv 3) in response to an attack in return for not using Dodge or Guard, but that won't stack with any Guard tanking and there are powers that can avoid armor, so it's a risky move to rely on. They also get Aegis Guard, which does the same thing as the Balor's d10 per level Guard power. You can also get Giant's Life Force, which is exactly the same as Pain Editor (+5 HP a level, 5 levels). There are a fair number of repeated powers for a reason. Plenty of power sets have something like, say the +2 dam per level Beast Strength. Most Syndromes don't have that, Lock On, Sky's Ruler, AND Nameless Blade. A Chimera's specialization in damage is sealed by how they can take more and more powers that provide damage, and how their powers often provide damage more efficiently. Plus, by having these basic abilities in multiple Syndromes, you make it easier to construct combos and incentivize using 'Syndrome' powers that require powers from a specific Syndrome to be added in. Anyway, Chimera's weirdest defense is Blade of Vengeance. The Chimera Counter-Attacks instead of Guarding or Dodging, with no other powers permitted, but at Critical Value 10-Lv (Max Lv 3). Neither you nor your target can Dodge or Guard, though they're probably getting a fully powered combo while you're just doing effectively a Concentrated basic attack. I'm actually not sure if they resolve simultaneously or not; I had it work that the Blade counter goes first and if it kills the target cancels their attack, but I suspect it's meant to go off at the same time on a second look. Still, it says a lot about Chimera that their most unique response to an attack is to trade licks. Chimera's ultimates almost all focus on, you guessed it, melee damage. Full Power Attack is a Setup power at Restrict 80 that gives a huge +5 damage per level boost, but requires you to set your Init to 0 that round as you're entering your smashing stance and preparing a huge blow. Divine Beast Attack requires you be in Therianthropy when you use it, and ends your Therianthropy when cast. But it gives a truly massive Lv+2 DICE bonus to damage. Max level 3. So +5d10 at max, as if you'd hit by 50 more attack resolution. It's a great finishing blow (since you'd turn back after the fight anyway), especially as it's 'only' Restrict 80. Soul of the Beast at 100 is a simple +5 Dice to a Body test (any Body test) for 5 Encroachment, it's not very good for a Restrict 100. King of Beasts scares someone so bad they can't Dodge or Guard or get anyone to Cover them against your big attack at 100, though they could still use a no-sell power like Balor and Halo's ultimates. The two 120s are Proof of the Hell Beast, which is Eternal Life from Stoker except it can go two levels higher (for up to 50 HP when you get back up) so it's better, and ULTIMATE THERIANTHROPY. You transform into 'the Ultimate Life Form', adding +Level dice to all melee attacks and +10 Armor that will stack with any worn armor, max level 3. It costs 4d10 Encroach. You're at 120. You're probably near the danger point and the fight is hopefully nearly over. But this is the best possible expression of Chimera's schtick: Complete and total physical melee superiority. The Pures are similarly extremely good. Mighty Therianthropy is an add-on for Complete Therianthropy that gives 2 extra damage per level (and since you're Pure, its max level of 3 is really 5) and +3 Armor per level while transformed, at the cost of making transforming cost another 6 Encroach (so 15 if you change, summon claws, and also cast Mighty. This is a pretty significant investment heat-wise). The other Pure gives you a limited stock of melee AoEs with Multiple Arms, letting you punch multiple faces. This is the only way for a Pure Chimera to gain anything but single target damage. Which gets us to the weaknesses of Chimera. Chimeras do a shitload of damage, but they do it to one guy. They have good movement, but they need another power set to get any AoE beyond Multiple Arms, so they're usually best used on bosses and tough enemies. A Balor or someone who can stop them moving can keep a Chimera away from you and they have no non-melee options. They don't give you anything but melee power, but they're really goddamn good at melee power. They can also be surprisingly fragile, given they have no powered Dodge option without another Syndrome and their Guard is merely okay. Still, if you want to play a pure melee character, throwing some Chimera in the mix will never, ever do you wrong. And hey, needing another power set to cover for your deficiencies is why you usually get 2. Chimera's simples let you maintain a healthy and toned physique no matter how little you exercise or what you eat, make your transformed form incredibly glorious to behold, give you the ability to sense weather and earthquakes and launch yourself accurately at voles by keying you in to the earth's magnetic field, let you live in the ocean, make animals love you, let you see in the dark, or let you turn into a non-combat secondary form and hang around as a cat or whatever. Next Time: Exile Gets Icky
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Dec 20, 2018 16:00
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Having watched the amazingly trashy anime Killing Bites recently, Chimera is entirely my jam.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:07
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| # ? May 26, 2024 01:47 |
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Double Cross The Thing Exiles are the creepiest of the power sets. If you want actual body horror (whether your PC is terrified by what they've become or cheerfully unaware of how hosed up their powers look) you've come to the right place. Exiles are the 'soft' shapeshifter to the Chimera's hard, and are the other major purely physical power set. Much like Chimera, they don't do anything with magic or mind. Unlike Chimera, they're perfectly capable of supplementing a gunfighting build. They focus on tentacles, stretching the body, pulling Croenenberg-like biomechanical guns out of their own ribcage, fusing with people, that kind of stuff. While Chimera handles raw damage in melee, Exile does a lot of the other physical stuff. They have abilities that will let you hit multiple targets per attack (at the cost of -10 attack power) with Festival of the Twisted, they've got multiple ways to grant a ton of extra dice and more accuracy on physical attacks, they can turn their melee into ranged attacks that hit any point they can see via stretching their body, they can ignore Guards, they can pull people to them, that kind of thing. They focus a lot more on the accuracy, defense, and fuckery side of physical combat. They do get some damage boosts, but they tend to cost more Encroach while not being as effective as say Chimera's. Critically, their basic +Dice ability, All Range, will work fine with Ranged and Melee both, though they get a second +Dice move, Ravenous Fists, that's melee only and costs a bit more in return for being more efficient at boosting dice. They also get the ability to add some status effects to their melee attacks. They can inflict Hatred, forcing a target to go after a specific target (which can be another enemy!) for 10 Encroach once per battle with Brain Hack (they put goo in your brain and now your brain's hosed up). They can poison people for DoT with Preta Tamer as pieces of the Exile get inside the wound and try to make it worse. They have multiple ways to inflict a status called Pressure. Pressure causes someone to be unable to do anything that doesn't require a test, until they spend a Minor to shake it off. This does NOT apply to Rez, but it means no buffs, no heals, no reactive debuffs, etc until they shake off Pressure. They also have amazing defenses; Exile is one of the strongest overall defensive Syndromes because it can supplement whichever defense you wanted to focus on. It lacks a summoned armor, but the summoned weapon, Bone Sword (pull out your own bones and use them as a mono-sword, or just grow lots of spines for your tentacles) has pretty solid damage but a great 6 Guard value. Their summonable weapons both have solid starting damage but not much growth potential; they can create guns and swords out of their own bones and bodies. They also have the best cheap Guard in the game, though it's very EXP intensive: Distorted Body gives them 3+Lv Guard when used for only 1 Encroach, with 10 levels. Springy Shield is a good emergency Guard, granting +10 Guard when used but only being able to be used once per scene per level (max 3). They also get a power to let them Guard others, taking the hit for an ally. Normally this uses up your turn, but not if you use Life Shield. Moreover, they can get an enhancement that lets them cover allies at range. So not only can you be pretty tough, you can throw yourself (literally, the ranged Cover is default fluffed as breaking off pieces of yourself to throw in the way of attacks) between your squishy Neumann buddy Makoto and the incoming bullets. They get a great basic Dodge in Serpent's Moves (just a basic +Lv Dodge Dice power, but since it's an active dodge you can combine it with a Crit Value boost), and Wriggling Swamp can let them move whenever they dodge, including breaking out of melee engagements. But their real standout, which no-one else gets, is Mark of the Twisted. Mark of the Twisted costs as much base Encroach as Pain Editor or Giant's Life Force, but goes up to Level 10. So an Exile with that maxed has +50 HP. Given you normally get 2 HP a Body point (and 1 per Mind) that's a lotta bonus HP. Combine that with a good Guard or Dodge, and you'll either tank hits well or survive loving up at least one high-risk Dodge. They also have an auto-counter like Balor, and it can hit people outside of melee range, but still only works once per turn and only does 3 damage per level instead of 5. Your tentacles just automatically counter-slap someone. Exile also gets a couple odd moves. They have a good heal in Cannibalize, and it's the only power they have that uses the magic skill. This is because almost all of the basic healing powers use that skill, so you can combine two heals into one action for a better heal. They still don't actually have to make a check to use it, it just heals someone by d10 per level, plus a flat modifier equal to your Body stat (max level 5). It cannot heal the Exile, though. They're pulling excess biomass off themselves and setting it to regenerate a friend. How nice of them! They also get a power that will, at a cost, negate any dice penalties their abilities are suffering at the moment. You are too weird to stop! They can also declare a reaction with Devil's String that just stops an enemy's Auto action (like an enemy trying to heal or buff a friend), though the action you stop can't be a super enemy only power or a Restrict 80, 100, or 120 power. Also they can blow up. Like, just explode as a bomb, like the Black Dog. Ultra Bomber just performs an AoE (note it does not have Select, everyone in that engagement gets blown up) Attack Power 5xLevel attack that cannot be Dodged or Guarded without being a Restrict power like Black Dog, but it drops you to 0 HP immediately (though you can still Rez). Hey, remember how a Stoker's minions have all the Stoker's powers? Just a thought on potential synergies. Exile gets really weird ultimates, as befits Exile. Spiral Attack at 80 is simple enough; use your minor to charge up your weird biology to attack in a weird way and make your attack cause reactions +1 Crit Value, simple. Otherworldly Genes is the weird one: You steal someone else's power, at level 1. If someone else used a power, you can spend 5 Encroach to steal it and know how to do it at its basic level until the end of the scene. In practice less useful than you'd think, but still hilarious. Giant Growth is a very solid attack buff at 100 that just gives your melee attacks an AoE and +2d10 damage, usable Lv number of times an adventure (Max lv 1, though. Unless you're Pure you won't get to use it many times). Sword of Life is a weird one. It adds 3 Encroach to a melee attack at 100 to add +Damage equal to your current Body stat. You might be thinking that sounds amazing for a Chimera-Exile. I can tell you from watching a Chimera-Exile go through guys like wheat with that ability that yes, it does. It's power is that it requires no further investment beyond buying the power; to make it stronger, you pump up Body, which if you're a melee character using a melee ultimate ability, you already wanted to do and which benefits you all the time anyway. Their 120s are Transmission, which is a no-sell power where you just turn to liquid and let an attack go through you for 4d10 Encroach, reducing damage to 0, and Fusion. Fusion is another weird one. You fuse with an ally, and suddenly you two have to move together until the power ends. However, your ally now has all your powers, too, at your levels of power. And you both still get turns. Also only costs 2 Encroach to activate. So your buddy is running around linked directly to you and now they're an extremely powerful Exile on top of whatever else they had. The Pure Restricts for Exile are a very powerful 'declare after HP damage is taken' power that reduces damage by d10 per level, up to 5 levels since you're Pure, and a 'use this Lv times per adventure' power that lets them just add +10 to an attack or Dodge after seeing the original dice result. Which is great for when you just need a little more to put you over the top. Exile's Simple powers and fluff abilities are hosed up and weird, as you'd expect. They can walk on walls by covering themselves in tiny barbs, they can slip through cracks, they can turn their fingertips into multitools, they can invade a person's brain with their brain invading tentacles and read their thoughts if they're incapacitated, they can slip inside the body of an unconscious target and let them carry the Exile unwittingly into high security places which is loving horrifying, and they can disguise themselves as anyone and anything. So yes, you can literally be The Thing, right down to Norwegians being unable to kill you with rifles. Exile is a really weird, but useful power set with a flavor that really sells the whole 'genetic horror' angle. You want to be scary and add some excellent tanking ability to a character, throw on Exile. They play well with others a little better than Chimera, since they do more than just melee powerhouse stuff, but they fit especially well with, well...Chimera. Chimera-Exile is a natural combo that covers for one another's weaknesses very well. But they'll add something to any combo that wants a little more physical ability. Their dodging is great, though curiously they lack the freedom of movement of a Chimera. Their damage resistance and HP go well with almost anything that isn't a pure glass cannon or caster build. They skew a little towards melee, but stuff like Festival of the Twisted works fine with ranged combat and they can supplement a gunslinger character very well; you want to grow eight tentacle eyestalks so you can fire your twin Neumann pistols in every direction, go for it! They also get great tanking abilities that will let them cover their weaker teammates and Cannibalize is good for healing others. Next Time: Faster than blasphemy!
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Dec 20, 2018 18:16
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