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Mors Rattus posted:Hunters exist! They are absolutely not mechanically suited to fighting Hosts, which is probably why Hosts don't show up in their books. How would a Host-hunting hunter campaign work out that isn't "  TPK", anyhow? (That includes TPK by installment)
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Aug 29, 2019 21:31
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StratGoatCom posted:How would a Host-hunting hunter campaign work out that isn't " First thing I'd do is make it way harder for a Host to get inside you. Like I would just straight up change the rules on that, since they are definitely designed to be rules for Werewolf. Second, I'd suggest shooting any small, gross animal moving with any sort of purpose near you. A Host is weak outside of...uh, a host. The main thing that makes them TPK material is just how easy it is for them to get inside a human, and frankly those rules only matter in Werewolf insofar as it becomes a race against time to dig one out of your human or Wolf-Blooded packmate before they die.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:35
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StratGoatCom posted:How would a Host-hunting hunter campaign work out that isn't "
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Aug 29, 2019 21:38
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The Chiron group will probably give you a bonus and a free extraction procedure if you get Host infected. I also incredibly want to play a Vascu/Valkyrie game that's just Control but in nWoD. wiegieman fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 21:40
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The hell lampreys sound cool. Is there any more info on the Drowned or what will actually happen if the Lampreys pull off their weird ritual? It reminds me a lot of Dominions blood magic.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:50
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PurpleXVI posted:The hell lampreys sound cool. Is there any more info on the Drowned or what will actually happen if the Lampreys pull off their weird ritual? It reminds me a lot of Dominions blood magic. I don't remember anything else about the Drowned but they're probably from an earlier supplement I'm not recalling. There is absolutely nothing about what will happen if the Lampreys win. Presumably bad things, it's kind of an open-ended 'GM, do what you want with this' thing.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:51
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"It reminds me a lot of Dominions" means whatever it is, it ain't leading anywhere good. That's how you get a fountain teleporting into a city and electrocuting everyone until they worship it as a God. Or a smug giant head just kinda staring at everyone until it rules the universe.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:52
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Also, I would note - any Host victory is pretty much an apocalypse scenario. When I say the entities that the Hosts are pieces of were gods, that's literal. They were gods. Wolf, the literal best hunter in all existence, was one of them. Wolf was unable to permanently kill them, or even imprison them the way the idigam were. The Hosts are the result of the best effort Wolf could put in. Which is to say, he tore these gods into small pieces and the pieces have been trying to get back together. Werewolves are the main reason they haven't.
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Aug 29, 2019 21:55
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I'm just picturing a group of Union hunters suiting up with army surplus hazmat gear to go fight a Host on its home turf. "Y'all got your PPE right? poo poo ain't for funnin' around." with duct-taped-up wrists and ankles and crowbars at the ready. These guys are ready to loving rock.
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Aug 29, 2019 22:07
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Mors Rattus posted:Also, I would note - any Host victory is pretty much an apocalypse scenario. When I say the entities that the Hosts are pieces of were gods, that's literal. They were gods. Wolf, the literal best hunter in all existence, was one of them. Wolf was unable to permanently kill them, or even imprison them the way the idigam were. The Hosts are the result of the best effort Wolf could put in. so were they gods torn apart by Wolf or just dead gods? I'm pretty sure Mage has you deal with stuff like this and it looks like Mages would also have trouble with hosts because 'don't get touched by small animal that can blend in with other small animals and possibly control swarms of them and also has sapient intelligence' is pretty much impossible. edit: just realized half of the mage armor's make this trivial, nevermind.
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Aug 29, 2019 22:48
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The KAMB! post I accidentally edited out of existence is back, thank you inklesspen and your archive for saving me from myself
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Aug 29, 2019 22:48
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Hosts are really clearly geared towards Werewolf games and become way more menacing in any other context solely because of their infection rules being 'lolded.' It kind of makes it hard to bring the interesting and unique parts of a Host to bear on non-Werewolf enemies without some house rule to prevent 'desperate terror of small animals' being the only actual tone. Honestly that's the weakest part of them for me, so I really like the Toad Hosts - as written they'd make great Mage antagonists, especially the one who can use any Supernal artifact he acquires, to the vast frustration of the Mysterium. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 23:17
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im pretty sure uk politics is entirely run by toad hosts
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Aug 29, 2019 23:30
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Mors Rattus posted:First thing I'd do is make it way harder for a Host to get inside you. Like I would just straight up change the rules on that, since they are definitely designed to be rules for Werewolf. Yeah, you get why the Hunters in Darkness make them their Sacret Hunt prey. 'Respect your territory' also includes 'don't let an evil frog spirit hippity-hop inside inside your Wolf-Blooded community.'
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Aug 30, 2019 00:58
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potatocubed posted:Yeah. The choice with them isn't so much 'oh no, how do we choose between these equally grim fates' but 'hmm, in what order are we going to hit every one of their side quests?' OTOH Surabel is the criminal here, and the greed spirit is just doing what spirits do.
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Aug 30, 2019 05:33
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juggalo baby coffin posted:im pretty sure uk politics is entirely run by toad hosts I really love imagining the squirming antipathy in a Mystagogue's entire soul as they sit through an occult auction knowing they can't assassinate Boris Johnson and steal his secret artifacts, it would get on the news.
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Aug 30, 2019 05:56
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Joe Slowboat posted:I really love imagining the squirming antipathy in a Mystagogue's entire soul as they sit through an occult auction knowing they can't assassinate Boris Johnson and steal his secret artifacts, it would get on the news. pedophile MP cyril smith was definitely a toad host  probably eric pickles is too  and the absolute unit guy 
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Aug 30, 2019 06:35
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The Lone Badger posted:OTOH Surabel is the criminal here, and the greed spirit is just doing what spirits do. I think everyone's forgetting that Surabel and Joe will be going after the city art committee, as they imagine them being the foe. Actually a clever bit of writing, considering our days: few people would object a spirit merking some bankers. What's the fluff behind nHunters? Maybe whatever took place of heavenly choir screaming INHERIT THE EARTH (I hope it's what it literally did in nWoD and it isn't just some reference I don't get) could provide some mystical protection from Lice Hosts. What's the skinny on the hosts that were in the main book?
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Aug 30, 2019 06:40
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JcDent posted:I think everyone's forgetting that Surabel and Joe will be going after the city art committee, as they imagine them being the foe. Actually a clever bit of writing, considering our days: few people would object a spirit merking some bankers. The default fluff for a nHunter is you took a long look around at the World of Darkness, nodded sternly to yourself and got out a shotgun and a Molotov. Some hunters have organizations of various shadyness that help a bit, but the core idea is that you are not special and magical, just clever and full of righteous fury at all this hosed up poo poo.
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Aug 30, 2019 06:46
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JcDent posted:What's the fluff behind nHunters? Maybe whatever took place of heavenly choir screaming INHERIT THE EARTH (I hope it's what it literally did in nWoD and it isn't just some reference I don't get) could provide some mystical protection from Lice Hosts. There's a bunch of separate ones. From the blue-collar unionists just trying to protect their neighbors, to the FBI's serial killer unit who by this point have Seen Some poo poo, to the unethical biotech company looking to harvest monsters for interesting parts, to the government's black-bag military conspiracy....
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Aug 30, 2019 06:48
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I always really liked the theory that each of the conspiracies was designed to represent a different deep fear of monsters in the CoD but sadly it falls apart a bit with the new ones in the various supplements
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Aug 30, 2019 12:03
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Once hunters join one of the big tier 3 organizations ("Conspiracies") they get access to a specific schtick. Vascu agents have psychic powers due to radical FBI drug therapy, Task Force Valkyrie has high tech guns and devices, etc.
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Aug 30, 2019 12:48
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Ithle01 posted:so were they gods torn apart by Wolf or just dead gods? I'm pretty sure Mage has you deal with stuff like this and it looks like Mages would also have trouble with hosts because 'don't get touched by small animal that can blend in with other small animals and possibly control swarms of them and also has sapient intelligence' is pretty much impossible. Gods torn apart by Wolf. However, they do have Mage ties - the Neolithic shard in Dark Eras predates the raising of the Gauntlet and the death of these ancient gods, and they're basically half spirit, half Supernal entity. It is heavily implied that the ones Wolf didn't tear apart were the old gods cast down and defeated by the Exarchs in the prior timeline, and part of why even the ones he didn't tear apart aren't really around any more is they're either imprisoned or were depowered by the Exarchs. E: And I'd note, Wolf was one of them, he just got his rear end killed by the Forsaken when he became too weak to properly do his job.
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Aug 30, 2019 13:10
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So the World of Darkness really is a game of Dominions, then.
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Aug 30, 2019 13:12
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:I'm just picturing a group of Union hunters suiting up with army surplus hazmat gear to go fight a Host on its home turf. "Y'all got your PPE right? poo poo ain't for funnin' around." with duct-taped-up wrists and ankles and crowbars at the ready. These guys are ready to loving rock. If they're Union they've probably got access to some pretty horrible chemical weapons to help deal with the least hosts.
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Aug 30, 2019 13:20
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Night10194 posted:So the World of Darkness really is a game of Dominions, then. Everything is Dominions, eventually.
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Aug 30, 2019 13:21
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The Lone Badger posted:If they're Union they've probably got access to some pretty horrible chemical weapons to help deal with the least hosts. 1. Make an air-tight armore suit. 2. Attach Chemical Weapon Mist Dispenser 3. Enjoy melting everything around you 4. (Optional) Employ Death Guard Imagery
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Aug 30, 2019 13:22
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brb making a pest control guy for a nwod game.
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Aug 30, 2019 14:59
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Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon Yaoi Hands  Meet Drugs Spider. The Shartha dream of Pangaea and reuniting, for the most part...but there are exceptions. Even a Host can develop new ideas. Ehlzahdha, the Dreaming Architect is one such, a member of the Azlu spider Shards that once had no name, no drive beyond consuming others of its kind and strengthening the Gauntlet. It hid, it fed, it grew, it fought, it broke into smaller pieces, and so on. But when night, it got inside someone and something was different than normal. The brain it had entered was changed somehow. Its senses wavered and warped as it ate. Its new body had been on mind-altering chemicals, and the Spider absorbed them. It discovered the sensation of altered consciousness, and that changed its world. It took its time breaking in its new body. It was careful in its hunting, cautious and discreet. It experimented with various chemicals, feeling its perspective shift each time. It named itself, and it learned how to care about things beyond its purpose. Ehlzahdha has, under a series of aliases, been working as a secret architect of its city for over a century. It crawls into the ears of planners and builders and injects its dreams into them. It builds up the Gauntlet in key locations and allows it to be eroded in others, carving out secret roads for spirits to follow without even realizing. It has been shaping the city to a pattern its people cannot see, and even the wisest werewolf shaman would have trouble anticipating its dreams and seeing the pattern. They don't have its perspective, after all. The Dreaming Architect believes firmly that building things with the right materials, angles and location has supernatural effects. She accomplishes some of this with her innate Spider Host abilities to manipulate the Gauntlet, but she also uses anything else that catches her interest. (It's she now because her primary host body is female and she's started to identify with it.) She uses occult legacies of all kinds - silver nails, leylines, pyramids, sigils. Her creations can have very weird effects - a hotel channeling negative resonance might empower ghosts within it, for example. Even by Azlu standards, she's playing a very long game. She is trying to reshape an entire city to create a pattern out of her own dreams, rather like someone using feng shui but with the added complexity of the Gauntlet and the spirit world. She is very smart and rational for a Host, if obsessed. If werewolves bother her, she has a simple checklist. Misdirect them. If they don't leave, trap them. If they evade the trap or seem to be breaking free, strike to kill. If they're too strong, run. She may negotiate if all else fails, too. Her main bargaining chips are that she claims to be much less violent than other Spider Hosts, that she is a common foe of the Rat Hosts, and her unique skills as an architect of the Gauntlet may be useful. Her fascination with dreams and altered states are the key to what makes her so different from other Spiders, and she regularly experiments with new drugs in the safety of her lair, hunting inspiration. Even she isn't sure what her work's final effects will be, but she believes it will alter the minds of the entire city, perhaps locking them all in dreams. Currently, the Spider wears the form of an older, refined woman that goes by the name Ehlissa Duke. She is known to be a rich, eccentric recluse who wants to ensure her name lives on by funding various building projects. She speaks breathily, as though her lungs are weak, and pretends to be a bit senile if she thinks she's talking to someone dangerous. Her true form, if she is forced to tear off her human facade, is still mostly humanoid - it's a seven foot, feminine biped covered in chitin and with eight spear-tipped legs where the arms should be. Her voice remains breathy, but this time it's because she has multiple sets of lungs. Ehlzahdha has created one building with a shockingly low Gauntlet - shockingly because it's in the middle of a block with an extremely strong Gauntlet. She has funneled spirit intrusions into the building by making it a weak spot, and it's about to become a full-on Verge, where people can accidentally stumble into Spirit. The locals have noticed only that they've been having exceptionally weird dreams. Tracking her work is made easier by the fact that she isn't very creative when it comes to naming. Her only actual time as an architect was under the name Elias Dark, and an accidental encounter with werewolves convinced her it'd be better to operate at a remove rather than leading her projects directly. Elias Dark's creations in the 20s and 30s are infamously haunted and weird. In the 60s she was Eliza Dawn, mistress of an architect, in the 70s she was New Age architecture writer Elohim Masada, and in the 90s she was spiritual counselor Ezra Daly. As Spider Hosts go, Ehlzahdha is powerful. She's extremely intelligent, sociall skilled and physically terrifying - she can basically take a single werewolf in combat and beat them. It's a pack she'd have trouble with, despite her superhuman strength and speed and her excellent fighting skills. She's also very sneaky and good at surviving on the run, is clairvoyant, has plenty of cash and a secure lair, and she never forgets anything. Her skin is armored, she can walk on walls or trap people in illusory mazes, hurl webs, and has a toxic bite.  Kamen Hobo! The Locust Hosts, the Srizaku, know only hunger. They are born starving and nothing can sate them. They devour all, consuming anything even slightly edible. Most are not subtle, and so are quickly exterminated by local werewolves. Some, however, have the brain to find other methods. Forty years ago, a Locust took over a slow, malnourished human body. Its new mouth, it found, was weak. It had to chew slowly. Eat slowly. And the more it did that, the more flavor it tasted. It swallowed and then regurgitated to chew again, to taste again, until the food became a thick, sweet nectar. It learned to control its endless hunger, to be patient. With this came opportunity. It observed humanity, to better avoid their attention as it fed, and discovered they were drawn to the nectar's scent. With a bit of Essence, that nectar became a drug humans craved. It began to choose the humans best able to offer it things, eating those who could not. It became "he" - the King of Honey, lord of the feast and master of the most potent humans of the city. He finds it amusingly ironic - these humans, fat and never knowing hunger, feed him anything they can, no matter how rare or illicit the delicacy. He allows them the illusion of choice. His hunger is still infinite, but he at least has learned to savor his feasts at leisure. The Locust Hosts love each other's company, yearn for it, but when they gather en masse, they must either starve or devour each other. There is never enough for them to eat. They are the Shards of Famine-Bringer, an ancient god of hunger. Every one of them is born starving. Despite this, they have a talent for cooperating when entering a human host, and a Srizaku hybrid may well have several dozen individual Shards living inside it, acting as a united hivemind that has hollowed out organs and lives where they used to be. Each Shard has specific cravings, and so the hybrids hunger for an eclectic mix of the lot. None have the same tastes, but all agree on one thing: human flesh tastes great and is very Essence-rich. Most of them keep to rural areas - cities are tempting, full of food, but they're far too easy to be discovered in. The temptation is too great. Sometimes, a few hybrids allow their social instincts to come to the fore and gather together in secluded areas. These last until they run out of food, which is not long. Officially, the cult of the King of Honey has no name and would not consider itself a cult. They refer to it as 'our supper club' or whatever the regional equivalent would be. It is a club of wealthy and powerful individuals with jaded tastes who have the money and power to acquire new foods for the King and to conceal their own habits. New prospects are invited for private dinners and prevented a taste of the King's nectar for dessert. The euphoria it produces is usually enough to shackle their will, no matter who they are. The next taste, though, comes only after they sign a contract of secrecy. These contracts are not filed with any court, of course, but it helps reassure the prospective member. Totally mundane precautions for a totally mundane organization. The third taste of nectar is during initiation, where the new member appears before the hooded King. Surrounded by peers and the scent of nectar and food, they tend to lose all doubts about the status the club represents. The King occasionally refers to the members as his Honeyed Ones, and the group is small enough that they can fit inside a large boardroom. They have, between them, a shocking amount of power and influence. There are no ranks, there is no hierarchy, and so there is no Mystery Cult Initiation merit. All are equals before the King. The court of the King meets in an area arranged by one of the club's oldest members, a grand, windowless feast hall under a high security mansion. A throne sits on a raised platform for the King to sit on, his face obscured by his hood. The club meets once per lunar month. Any more would draw attention, while less would mean less nectar, which cannot be allowed. The ritual's quite simple. Each member brings one "dish" the King spoke about at the last feast, such as a rare animal, a fine wine or the brain of a great violinist. They also bring one offering of their own choice, legal or otherwise. They know their gifts are what is used to brew the nectar, so they choose flavors and sensations they hope will affect it. A small team of master chefs, all addicted to the nectar, prepare the offerings, either cooking them or slicing and serving raw. The table has enough food for each member to get a portion without starving the King, who at this point draws back the hood and spots a mouthful of golden nectar into each member's goblet. They thank him, drink, and take their seat to get high. At the end, they all lie back in their chairs and listen to the King drone on about the foods he's been dreaming of for next month. They eventually rise and leave. The King does not. He has not left his throne in years. While some Locust Hosts are nomads, always hunting food, he is extremely lazy and prefers to act through his proxies. About one third of his existence is eating. The rest, he is busy throwing it back up into his mouth to savor it more and produce more nectar. Like all Hosts, he knows and fears werewolves. If he were forced to face a pack, he'd happily try to negotiate first. However, his court and followers exist primarily so he can use their vast resources to make sure that never happens. He's extremely pragmatic and surprisingly skilled at talking to people for a giant cricket man. He'll lie or tell the truth depending on which seems like it'll keep him alive longer. His form is that of a wide, fat human in fine silk robes colored a rich amber. His hood is usually pulled up far enough to conceal his head, and his skin is a rich brown color with a faint oily sheen of gold. A faint hum surrounds him at all times, and if agitated, small shapes can be seen moving under his skin. He speaks in a kind, calming drone and slurs some of his consonants. His head is the blank-eyed face of a locust, and his stained mouth parts are always moving. The supper club of the Honeyed Ones is not completely secret. The members pay a lot for discretion from their staff, bodyguards, chaffeurs and so on to arrive there in secret, of course, but that means all those people know about the monthly trips, if not what happens there. Most werewolves are not really concerned with the parties of the obscenely wealthy, but some do pay attention, especially Iron Masters. Vice means opportunity, after all, or possible spiritual corruption. That said, even a very educated werewolf might not connect the exotic foods sent to the parties with signs of a Locust Host. They aren't exactly known for their rarefied tastes. However, a pack might discover refrigerated trucks carrying human body parts to a wealthy neighborhood, and that might give them reason to suspect an inhuman appetite...especially if they track it to the same place that exotic animals, fine silks and good furniture are also being sent. A Locust Host can eat anything organic, after all. Rumors may point a pack towards a journalist who died in a car accident while investigating some members of the supper club. She knew too much and got killed - she had discovered the location of the court of the King, assuming it was some kind of wealthy pleasure dungeon or the like with designer drugs. She was discovered trying to infiltrate it before she learned the truth. Going through her old files would reveal the court's location, as well as some notes about a golden "designer drug" liquid. The King of Honey is exceptionally strong, tough and charismatic, but he's slow and not especially clever. If forced to fight he's not bad at it, but he prefers to use social skills, his wide array of powerful mortal allies and his talent for reading emotional auras to tempt people into doing what he wants. He's very, very good at talking to people, and his court is very secure. If forced to fight, his skin is armored, he can spray blinding liquid, and his bite is toxic. He and a rare few other Locusts can produce the honey-like nectar by regurgitating what they digest. Anyone that consumes it feels intense euphoria and gains the Addicted condition, though cravings do not set in until a full lunar month passes since last dose. It also makes its users extremely suggestible to the Locust's will for that month, reducing their Resolve and Composure against it and preventing Willpower spending in its presence. Also, anyone that consumes it feels neither fear nor revulsion when looking at a Locust, no matter how horrible its form looks. Next time: Ranger Lovegrove and the Termite Hosts
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Aug 30, 2019 15:04
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So, what were the original forms of lampreys and spiders, or do they not come from gods?
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Aug 30, 2019 15:30
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JcDent posted:So, what were the original forms of lampreys and spiders, or do they not come from gods?
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Aug 30, 2019 15:35
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The spiders and rats both have named progenitors but they're not in this book because they've been in prior ones. The Lampreys' progenitor is not named here. e: took a bit of digging, but the Azlu are the remnants of the Spinner-Hag, and the Beshilu used to be the Plague King. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Aug 30, 2019 |
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Aug 30, 2019 15:53
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Isn't it possible that they represent gods of obscure or forgotten concepts? I know the idigam represent concepts from before the world was fully formed, I wouldn't put it past some of the hosts being things from prehistoric/pre-fall times.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:03
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Career Compendium Adventures in Academia As you might imagine, academia can be a little more exciting in a world where some books are filled with magical traps designed to let the devil get at your soul. One of the things that's always bugged me a bit in WHFRP 2e is that the setting makes it clear in fluff that you sometimes need to delve into forbidden knowledge to understand your enemy enough to beat them. Unfortunately, the mechanics have never backed this up; as you saw in Tome of Corruption, delving into forbidden lore just tends to be a save or die with no mechanical benefit. Thanks, Schwalb, you did a bang-up job making Chaos a fun thing to engage with. The reason I bring this up is that the Academics are fun and interesting characters and careers that suffer from a problem common to Academics in RPGs: Their actual mechanical utility is really variable. Moreover, the fact that Academic Knowledge is like 18 subskills means you're always guessing if you have the one you actually need. Some are broadly useful (History, Magic, Demonology, Necromancy) but others are very specialized and leave you guessing if you spent EXP on something that will come up. Still, we've been over that before; WHFRP has too many skills in general, and this is not a problem the new edition seems interested in solving. I suspect some of this is a function of 4e trying to have 64 character classes that are all 4 tier advance schemes in and of themselves, and similarly that it's a function of having 220 Careers in 2e. Having a poo poo-ton of Skills makes it easier to keep mechanically differentiating these things, I suppose, but it's still annoying and still a general flaw of the system. No game needs Concealment and Move Silently. If you game has Concealment and Move Silently (and god forbid, Shadowing) as separate skills, your skills are generally too narrow. It's especially egregious because some 'skill types' are very broad: See how widely applicable Charm is. A single skill already makes you a reasonably competent diplomat. Anyway, I digress. Student is the marquee Basic Career of the Academic line and it's really good. Really, really good. It's like Soldier, but for learning: You start out able to do what a party wants a learned character to do, day one. They're smart, they're actually pretty good with people, and they have the amusing and flavorful choice of how good of a student they were in their skill picks. You can either go for more Academic Knowledges or you can be better at socializing, depending on how much you paid attention in classes versus how much you went to town to get drunk. Imperial Universities are the pride of their cities. Every major Imperial city has a college of its own, and possibly several, ever since the very first recognizable university was established in Nuln. Also notable: Most Imperial Universities receive generous grants from their provincial governments and noble families, and they are considered state institutions. The Empire is proud of its centers of learning, but also recognizes the value of having places that train military officers, officials, engineers, doctors, and lawyers in order to run its goddamn mess of a government. University in the Empire is very free-wheeling in exactly how much you manage to learn; most students don't so much drop out as run out of money halfway through either their first or second degree. Also, you don't need anything to be admitted to most Imperial Universities besides money for tuition (or loans, many students are in terrible debt) and the ability to demonstrate basic literacy. Also amusing: Halflings managed to negotiate a state scholarship for Halfling students attending Imperial Universities. The little guys might be 'irrelevant', but they're surprisingly good at politics and getting benefits for the Moot and its citizens when they want to be. Never underestimate that +10 Fellowship. Also, elves generally don't attend human universities, which is probably because most elves wouldn't be able to keep up with the pace. Which is a shame, because a 'city elf' wearing slashed sleeves and a big hat getting into drinking contests with a bunch of rowdy Imperial students and then brawling over someone insulting their ears would be fun. Because of the financial issues, many Student PCs are people who had the talent and learning to finish school, but not the money. Without an actual degree, it's hard to make a career as an official or lawyer. So who knows how many PCs are just trying to get enough money to finish college, only to get swept up in a new career of grim and perilous adventure? The example Student character is pretty fun. An old Imperial Sergeant named Nicolai Kessler who fought in a Handgunner regiment, until a terrible battle cost him his eye and his left hand. He had a reputation for being good at teaching young nobles and freshly graduated officers how to adapt to commanding a unit in battle, and his many friends from his career suggested a career in academia could suit him now that he was too injured to fight. Entering university despite the requirement of basic literacy, he caught up and learned to read, and now he's a famous professor in Nuln. This is pretty accurate to someone 200-ing into a new career track: Student will set you up to become an expert scholar even if you knew nothing about academics before entering it. The other nice thing Students have that they share with most of the academic classes? They have a huge variety of good Exits. They have a bunch of other 1st tier tracks open to them (an ex-Student can become a wizard apprentice, an initiate, a barber-surgeon if you want a quick dip to being a dedicated doctor type and don't want to go all in on Physician, or they can even become political Agitators) but also a wide variety of 2nd tiers: Engineer, Physician, Agent of the Shroud (Vampire Hutner Spy), and Scholar. I consider Student one of the ideals of what a well done Basic looks like. What other sorts of fun academics are there? Well, there's the Dilettante, which you might recognize from Pierre in Paths of the Damned. Dilettante is an interesting class added new to this book. As you might imagine from the name, they're wealthy folk who love to dabble in a bunch of broad, narrow, self-taught disciplines and arts. They know a little about a ton of things, but have a weird side-rule that you can't buy +10s while in Dilettante; you have to finish the Career and move on. They just don't do Skill Mastery. They also have a simple advance scheme: +5% to all stats. The real interesting bit for them, though, is that they are a Career Exit roundhouse: Any Career that includes Read/Write in its skills can enter Dilettante. And their Exits list is immense. They can become Apprentice Wizards, Astrologers, Barber Surgeons, Catechists (religious professors), Charlatans, Courtiers, Initiates, Navigators, Rapscallions, Raconteurs, Students, Tomb Robbers, Tradesmen, OR Verenan Investigators. That's a hell of a list. Now remember something: If you've been in a Career, its Exits are always Exits for you. So if you've finished Dilettante, you can always choose to go into any of the above at the end of any future Career. Plus, a bunch of those are just good Careers. They also get a lot of fun fluff. They're excited amateurs, wealthy dabblers who just choose to spend their wealth and their time on learning whatever takes their fancy; learning is a luxury for them rather than a profession. As a result, while others in their fields usually look down on them, they're also a wonderful source of patronage and funding for real experts. As long as you can put up with them bothering you with excited questions and asking for the occasional book signing, these enthusiastic amateurs and their many clubs and 'academies' help keep the dedicated academics of the setting funded and working. The example academy was founded by a Dilettante who had the self-awareness to realize he isn't an expert in anything. He knows this is just his hobby and embraces it, and Herr Bernloch is very eager to support 'real' scholars while happily reading their books and trying to boost their careers. He's a litttttle overzealous in trying to get real experts to join his Academy of Arts and Sciences, though, and so there are rumors he accidentally let a Necromancer in. Along with a Druchii poisoner who now lectures on chemistry and herbalism. I like to imagine the Dark Elf is totally legit now, though. Someone who just said 'gently caress this' and moved to a new country where she can play around with making drugs and giving lectures about medicine. That'd be a fun NPC with a dark past that can catch up with her. Engineers are one of the marquee Advanced Academics. Warhams has always had a lot of fun with ridiculous fantasy engineering to go with their magic, and I appreciate it. The Engineer Career could maybe use a little more oomph; they're a secondary ranged class of sorts but primarily an academic, and if they just had Rapid Reload to go with Master Gunner they'd be able to do that job a lot better. They're a fairly short 2nd tier, actually; they're smart and they're decent shots, but depending on what Career you came in from (Student, Tradesman, Miner, or Artisan) you might already have many of their skills, making how long you stay a matter of how much extra you want to spend for +10s. They do learn Engineer OR Gunpowder weapons, though, so you can use a Hochland Longrifle or learn to use pistols. Sadly, Repeater Firearms are pretty weak RAW since they don't have Impact. Imperial Engineers are very odd people. The School of Engineering in Altdorf was founded 500 years ago, and the city's been weirder ever since. Yes, Altdorf has both the magic academy and the crazy science academy. Traditionally, the School of Engineering is focused almost entirely on devices useful to the Imperial Army. They invented the many-barreled Hellblaster Volley Gun. They built the unreliable and basic rocket batteries used by Imperial Artillery. They trained adorable carrier pigeons to drop bombs on people. A recent controversy has seen some famed professors start to say the School should be working on civilian equipment to ease the burden of labor in agriculture and industry. There have even been proposals to try to adapt the engines used in the Steam Tanks to some sort of hand-loom to more quickly process textiles. Yes, the Empire is potentially on the edge of unlocking its own Industrial Revolution despite being in the 16th/17th century in most ways. These ideas are scoffed at; workers would riot if they suspected the School was trying to replace them with automatons. Moreover, it's the duty of the Imperial Engineers to make things explode! Also they don't actually know how the Steam Tanks work; the Tilean who built them left his notes behind in code and they haven't been able to puzzle them out. Engineers in the Empire do that a lot, fearful someone else will steal their inventions. Imperial Engineering, like all other things Imperial, is a goddamn mess. Should also be noted the School admits plenty of radical Dwarfs who were too wild for their own guilds. If you're a renegade Dwarf scientist who plays by their own rules and doesn't care about spending 300 years in prototyping, the Imperials would be happy to give you a job and a degree! Journeymen Wizards get some fun fluff additions here: Their entry in the Compendium really emphasizes how they're a working graduate student. They try to avoid using magic as much as possible, because magic is dangerous and they aren't great at it yet. They're obsessively bookish because most of them still have coursework to get through before they can be considered for promotion to Magister. They're trying to finish their coursework while having their requisite character-building adventures, earning enough money to live on, and trying not to get killed by orcs. It's funny to me that for the majority of a campaign, a Wizard PC is still a student of some kind; Journeyman Wizard is the longest point in the Wizard track. Unless you want to stick around for a ton of +10s, Master Wizard doesn't really have new skills or talents: By the end of Journeyman, you know almost everything you really need to know to finish the bare minimum of Master Wizard and get into being a Wizard Lord. Of course, if your GM is using the Trappings system, that's going to bottleneck you on getting into Master Wizard and might send your Journeyman scurrying down other Career tracks: Promoting into Master Wizard requires 2 Magical Items under RAW. Academia in Warhams can be a fun place, between the ridiculous wizard colleges and the many Imperial Universities. I just wish it was better supported mechanically and less reliant on playing a guessing game about which Knowledge skills will be useful. At least Intelligence is always useful for having someone with Heal and a good Perception roll around; no matter what sort of adventure you find yourself on, an academic is usually useful with bandages and they're generally sharp eyed. There are plenty of other Academic Careers, these are just the ones I feel have the most amusing fluff or the most solid mechanics; most of the Advanced Academic Careers get fairly boring fluff additions even though most of them are quite useful as classes (if you wanted to be good at being a doctor or a translator or a scholar). Next Time: Warriors
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Aug 30, 2019 16:07
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Isn't it possible that they represent gods of obscure or forgotten concepts? I know the idigam represent concepts from before the world was fully formed, I wouldn't put it past some of the hosts being things from prehistoric/pre-fall times.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:11
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Warhammer campaigns should absolutely make the wizard run around and do stupid dangerous jobs to afford money in order to make it to tenure, because that sort of thing is where Warhammer is at its best. Sure, you have vast mystical power, but you also have student loans.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:11
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wiegieman posted:Warhammer campaigns should absolutely make the wizard run around and do stupid dangerous jobs to afford money in order to make it to tenure, because that sort of thing is where Warhammer is at its best. Sure, you have vast mystical power, but you also have student loans. Well, yes, but that's what you do for the 2000-3000 EXP you're in Journeyman for. Where you also don't have vast mystical power. People around you just think you do. The issue is mostly that Journeyman is already very, very long. This is actually one of the problems for Lore of Death; Lore of Death actually has a bunch of good spells, but most of them are just a little out of reach for what a Journeyman can do consistently. While most of the Lores considered very strong are Lores where some of the 12 or under CN stuff is really useful so a Journeyman can handle it, since you're going to be a Journeyman a very long time. The other issue is that getting Magic Items is a big ask. I've always preferred promoting a character to Master Wizard if that's the direction they want to go in advancement when they hit the EXP level they need, but not actually giving them tenure in setting until they finish doing ridiculous and dangerous things for it.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:15
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A campaign around getting the student-wizard enough magic items for a promotion and wizard-tenure, while along the way everyone picks up like 3 different odd jobs and sees multiple viable careers that don't involve engaging with academia anymore, sounds like the experiences of most of my grad school cohort. But with elves.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:16
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It's one of the reasons Warhammer academia is fun. It remembers that a lot of these people are poor as hell and need money and often end up well outside their specialty. E: And with how multiclassing works, and the way that a 2 Mag character with a Lore can often do the stuff their Lore is known for already? Having to 200-out or transition into weird other Career tracks isn't necessarily bad. A Shadow Wizard who actually gets into Thief or Hunter or something can be really powerful even with their basic Mag 2 tricks. I've had that PC in a game. That's one of the advantages the Ice Witches have: They can way more easily just go from their 2nd Wizard career into Scout or Veteran or Courtier or Sergeant if they want to do more than wizarding or they're in a campaign that enforces Trappings and they haven't found a magic item to promote with, since those are normal Exits for them. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Aug 30, 2019 |
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Aug 30, 2019 16:18
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It helps a bunch of these skills are also extremely useful and glossing over them is a fantastic way to end up over your head with no actual idea what horrible thing your fighting/trying to prevent is and wizards, even high powered, cant outright cheese it. Same goes for stuff like medicine due to a free roll for wounds always being useful due to the generally static amounts you have while your doctor/priest get better at healing overtime.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:32
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