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Communist Zombie posted:This would be an interesting setting detail if they just put some effort on where you would encounter them, and have them not lose ability to recognize non TITAN stuff. Ideas I had just after reading it: Maybe if they were, gasp, not literally the same thing copypasted every time, but some of them were still working according to their original programming, and others had slipped the leash(either becoming sentient with their own goals or aiming for total annihilation because everything now looks hostile), they could have a place in the setting. Maybe Firewall wants to recover one still working as it should, because it could help sterilize TITAN bullshit. Maybe the PC's need to disable or recover one that's apparently gone wild, prioritizing anti-TITAN defense over human survival, and draining a colony's vital feedstock reserves to make more combat machines to fight off a TITAN that might show up one day the worm is completely sure it will honest. Perhaps it could actually, gasp, be used for an interesting Mesh adventure where the PC's have to infiltrate a virtual realm to find the Worm at the heart of it, barricaded behind cybernetic defenses and utterly paranoid about the universe, and convince it to come back out and help protect humanity(or if that fails, kill it and recover its digital carcass for study). If one suddenly pops up and attacks a seemingly allied NPC, maybe it's one that's gone mad(the NPC will insist so), but maybe he's actually an exsurgent or otherwise working in the TITANs' interests(perhaps even unknowingly/unwittingly). You could do a ton of nuanced and interesting things with them, and instead we get "it attak u, roll 4 init lol" juggalo baby coffin posted:Glory doesn't even seem to have a win state for the players, and using any of your non-combat abilities either gets you nowhere (cause the writers didnt bother to write what would happen if you tried to negotiate with the baddies) or gets you the loving space virus that kills you. To drat with faint praise, you can actually complete a single secondary objective via negotiation, but that's it. Try to hack? Exsurgented. Try to sneak? Probably exsurgented. Try to fight? They're max-statted as far as the system permits. Try to nuke it from a distance? They win anyway because they have SUPER SPORES.
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Sep 2, 2019 07:51
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Seatox posted:Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition Epic Level Handbook: NUMBER GO UP I didn't mean NOW, I still have Zine Fest RPGs to get through ! juggalo baby coffin posted:My suggested fix for this would be to instead adopt the 13th age style bestiary: This is a good idea and should be implemented by more people writing monster manuals. Imagine all of those X-Threats aliens, but only the best of them, with 5 variants and 4 adventure hooks each, plus a page or two of special rules. That'd be actually useful.
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Sep 2, 2019 08:13
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Yeah, the Killer Spambots are way more interesting and nuanced than you would think from the name. If nothing else the idea is fruitful.
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Sep 2, 2019 08:21
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mllaneza posted:I didn't mean NOW, I still have Zine Fest RPGs to get through ! I've typed up a summary of the epic skill uses. The next part is the Feats, however, and that is eroding my willpower and sanity. Table 1-36: Epic Feats covers four pages, and that itself is a summary of the feats. There are, if I count right, 152 feats.
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Sep 2, 2019 08:54
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juggalo baby coffin posted:
Hey, if the Iktomi were anything like the 'people' in this universe, it might well have been a common aug. I personally like the theme of 'standing in the ashes of a million cultures that died almost like yours did, trying to shift out the truth of what happened'. Maybe you could find out some way to gently caress over the ETI and give it what it had coming for geological time scales  quote:Leftover Special Anyone who would abjure their humanity like that would probably be an S-tier edgelord at minimum, so I'm not precisely surprised that they behave like this.  quote:Neurode Speaking as a retro software enthusiast, I think I have a guess; it's like trying to run some flighty old games on your top of the line 3900x and 2080ti - it both runs the game too fast, and the changes needed to support that speed mean that either the game doesn't respond right to the new hardware, or certain older features were deleted; either you get erratic behavior from trying to run a mind intended to run on a human brain, or you gently caress about with hex editors trying to make the ego something that works correctly on the thing and bork the drat thing or cause the thing to get buggy and weird - and given that exhumans are consistently edgelords at best, you don't want to see what happens when they get erratic. The arch isn't really compatible with things intended to run on savanna apes. Mentons are like a somewhat faster Savanna ape that, while less powerful, is close enough that a human ego runs without too much bugginess. Seriously erratic behavior seems to be a consistent issue with amplified intelligence substrates in this universe - the Hyperbright morph, basically somewhere between a normal menton and this gobbet of head cheese is a pretty janky piece of shite that needs regular doses of brain drugs to avoid getting seriously brokebrained, a janky metabolism that runs like a blast furnace to run that brain and literal cooling fins to avoid the brain matter overheating. It's like multithreading, you need to tinker the software to specifically use the capability. And Neurodes are both created by the equivalent of the idiots who build these alarming constructs in the Bitcoin threads and don't care about erratic behavor. Though how the gently caress you can put a human brain tape on a literal intelligent octopus and have it run is beyond me - at least uplifted birds are still tetrapoda. Those things literally evolved eyes on an entirely separate path then we did! Edit: one risk I note they didn't bring up is that a Fetch and a neurode may be hard to distinguish at first, and if it came off the Cronus or Akonus codelines, it may either run much more smoothly out of the box, or be able to adapt itself to the new substrate without too much trouble. The fact that Creepers or TITAN nanoswarms or some previously unknown exsurgent horror might start coming out the walls at random if the Proxy made the wrong call in tasking a team would certainly up the pucker factor in Neurode extermination runs. 
StratGoatCom fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Sep 2, 2019 |
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Sep 2, 2019 12:46
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PurpleXVI posted:It occurs to me that a lot of these monsters have the same as that, I think it was Numenera bestiary that was reviewed a bit ago. No matter how much of a description we get of their inscrutable principles, goals and mindsets... basically all these things attack on sight, can't be negotiated with and the only method of interaction is combat. It makes for a very one-note universe. I keep going back to my old CoC 5th Ed book and their suggestion that even if an alien monster like a Mi-Go could paste a group of armed humans nine times out of ten, they'd be wary of that tenth time and carefully consider if they actually had any sort of reason to fight the humans. And thus would prefer to avoid unnecessary combat, themselves. Plus they're alien creatures; since the monsters are so weird you had cart blanche to decide they don't bother attacking, or slip back into the woods and stalk the protagonists, or back off after getting shot a bit even though getting shot didn't threaten them much. Or if everyone fails fear and passes out, maybe the monster just does something weird like eating half the party's ring fingers and leaving. Basically it went all in on 'they're weird and alien, they think of you as pests, and so here's a bunch of reasons you don't have to turn a monster sighting (or reasons players can escape a brief scene of physical danger) into combat because we know combat will just murder all of you'.
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Sep 2, 2019 14:18
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Night10194 posted:Also if the monster's plan is to crash into the sun because its spores will survive that, the hell are you supposed to do to destroy the infection? It's because you don't want it to be destroyed because it's your fetish. A magical realm constructed in the middle of a scifi setting. Someone did a "globalized fetish thread" but in an official supplement, which is as close as humanly possible to enforce your freaky sex thing on others.
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Sep 2, 2019 16:46
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Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon Occult Power Humans and spirits have existed alongside each other since prehistory, and so it shouldn't be surprising that there's always been a sort of wary awareness of them. Shamans, prophets, oracles and other mystics had the responsibility of placating spirits in the hopes that it would benefit their societies. In the modern era, this is considerably less needed - technology has made it so that many of the things you'd normally use rituals to beg spirits for just aren't needed. And so, the humans that call on spirits in the modern day tend to be rather less benevolent. Instead, they call on spiritual power for personal gain, for the most part. Other people use their abilities to rig the game with money, political power or social connections, and so it's not surprising that some people try to use magic to do it. Modern spiritual practitioners - the real ones, that is - tend to tap into the power of the spirits to influence human institutions for their own gain. The spirits don't generally care about why they're doing it as long as it produces more of the resonance that feeds them, after all. Thus, a modern shaman is able to use their powers for their own benefit, achieving comfort and power while pleasing their spiritual benefactors. Spirits tend to find them fascinating as wlel as appetizing. Most spirits in Shadow never really get a chance to meet a human, as they typically get devoured by other spirits well before they ever make it to Flesh. However, spirits do talk, and as much as anything else, they talk about humanity. Humans are are creative, moving things that alter the resonance of Shadow more than anything else in existence. Most spirits that get to the world of Flesh tend to see humans as little more than playthings or quick food sources, but the ones that are able to plan and be driven by more than instinct, those who have ambitions and future goals - these spirits are able to see opportunity in humans. There is more to humans, for a clever and ambitious spirit, than simply using them as puppets. Few modern occultists stumble into the Shadow by themselves. There aren't exactly any books or experts to call about spirits, either, though, so finding an education in real spiritual power is tricky. It's possible to self-teach spiritual occultism via trial and error plus scraps of old folklore, but most occultists end up being taught by a mentor or someone they can pay favors to in exchange for training. Most occultists keep an eye out for people with the drive and talent to join their ranks, after all. Taking on an apprentice has great advantages, often. You teach them how to tap into Shadow, and they provide service, loyalty or at least a warm body to throw at the spirits if things go horribly wrong.  And then there's this guy. Even with a teacher to help, of course, many people are simply unable to handle learning about the horrors that exist beyond their vision. Wolf kept Flesh and Spirit seperate for pretty good reaosns, after all. Humans tend to have breakdowns after extended exposure to the Shadow and its denizens. Preparing to call on spiritual blessings is fundamentally about self-violation. You must ritually ready yourself to allow an alien into your own body so it can pursue its goals. The first step of bargaining for Shadow's power is achieving a resonance with a spirit and gaining its attention. Several rituals exist to help with this, but the simplest, most effective way is inviting a spirit to take over your body. Obviously, this has the chance of going catastrophically wrong if the spirit decides it doesn't want to make a deal with you, it just wants to ride you around like a stolen car. Occultists know that more potent, higher-ranked spirits tend to be more likely to understand the concept of cooperation and bargaining...but they are also the ones most often able to just take what they want without caring about your side of things. Picking the right spirit to beckon is more of an art than a science, and it's also very luck-based. No matter what, however, regardless of whether you end up possessed, Urged or Claimed, you are mutiliating your symbolic self-nature to attune yourself to Shadow. But if you're lucky and skilled enough to survive the physical and mental traumas of being possessed, you now need to convince the spirit to agree to further trade. The spirit must feed you some of its Essence, attuning you to the Shadow. Of course, spirits cannot do anything for free. It's not in their nature to give up their own Essence for nothing. So at that point, you're going to have to bargain with it, typically for access to your body and the world of Flesh through it. Whether this is voluntary or not, it is always a transgressive act to the human involved, and it involves the spirit granting Essence through physical substance or act. You will need to eat raw Corpus torn from tis body, or pseudo-solid masses it spits out for you, or other disgusting acts that produce the substance symbolizing union of human and spirit. Some spirits require more than this, even - they take a price from you as well, such as ritual scarification, sex or other things that please it or let it see exactly how committed you are to this deal. This intentional debasement of your human nature violates your soul and opens you as a conduit to the Shadow. You gain a power associated with your patron, but also gain its Ban. Few Shadow occultists are willing to stop at just one bargain. Having paid the price in physical and mental damage, well...why not ask for more? The power was worth it once. Many occultists bargain with more and more spirits, taking on multiple transgressions or taboos they must obey in exchange for the power of the spirits they're dealing with. They use these powers to command lesser humans or get what they want from the world, but they quickly learn that the power has a cost in Essence, both to fuel its use and to pay their patrons for it. The quickest way to gain the necessary Essence typically involves sacrifice of the health or stability of other people. Older spiritualists tend to be terrible, terrible people who will do just about anything in pursuit of more occult power. Even at the weakest levels, however, Shadow occultists are able to use their Influences to manipulate the concepts and creatures within their patron's domain. When an occultist moves in, they usually establish all manner of early warning defenses against intruders and wards to drive off or kill the overly curious. From this you may well end up with rumors of the creepy old house infested by giant rats that seem far too intelligent. It's probably just the lair of an occultist pacted to a spirit of rats. "Just." More established occultists are often well known in their neighborhood for being extremely weird. One of the examples is an old woman named Mary, whom the locals know as MAry Mary Quite Contrary. She is bound to repeat her name to anyone that asks and cannot allow any statement to go unchallenged. They tend to think of her as a harmless old beggar. In truth, she and people like her may well be just bound to so many Bans and obligations for power that their minds shatter under the strain. Such people are often mistaken for beggars or sufferers of mental illness, taken pity on by those around them. Sadly, they are much more sinister than these innocents and can generally justify terrible sins to themselves to get one more fix of power. (They also typically don't need monetary help; they're just broken under the yoke of spirits.) So, how do you make a Shadow occultist? Step one is taking the 4-dot Shadow Occultism merit. It should be noted that any transgressions an occultist performs, whether for initiation into new merits or to gain new abilities, are always Breaking Points. Period. To take Shadow Occultism, you must be human and you must have been possessed, Ridden or Claimed by a spirit at some point, and you must have received transgression through Essence from a spirit, enduring at least one Breaking Point in the pursuit of this merit. Once you take it, you are able to perceive your spiritual patrons in Twilight, you gain an Essence pool and you may learn and lead Pack Rites, even if you aren't part of a werewolf pack. You also gain the ability to wield spiritual Influence. You get a single 3-dot Influence free from the spirit that initiated you, retaining it as long as you have this merit. You can use it as if you were that spirit, but using your own stats for rolls. Your Essence pool is based on Stamina nd Resolve, but you can spend as much as you want at once. You regain 1 Essence per day by being in contact with the resonance of your initial Influence, and may regain 1 Essence per week for each taboo you have succesfully maintained. You may draw Essence from Loci. However, you automatically gain your patrons Bane and a single taboo. We'll get to those momentarily. You gain the Madness condition whenever you have more Essence than your Resolve and the Sick tilt when you have more Essence than your Stamina. From here, you can learn the 3-dot Shadow Perception merit, as long as you endure at least one further Breaking Point in pursuit of it. This allows you to see all spirits in Twilight, understand First Tongue and sense if a location you are in or a person or thing you touch is resonance with any Influence you currently have. You may also sense the presence of a Locus when you are within its area of influence, though you cannot enter Shadow on your own; you must be carried through the Locus by a spirit. You can't turn off your spirit vision, and you become more obvious to spirits at this point - no matter what, they can see you clearly and may seek you out regardless of the inconvenience it may cause you. Taboos are the ways that Occultists pay for the power they get, allowing them to earn more Essence or Influences. You can buy new taboos with XP, but can never have more than your Composure. Each taboo is broadly similar to a spirit's Ban and must be based on one or more of your patrons. You might be forbidden from wearing a certain color, must pet every dog you meet no matter what, must kill one rat each day or must never lie - or more painful things, sometimes. Taboos must be meaningful to you, though - you can't take one that never comes up. The Shadow will take its due. You may choose to shed or replace your taboos to change what Influences you have, but this requires a full day of ceremonial purification and then a roll. Success means you can remove a taboo and either immediately replace it or just let it go. If you replace it, the old one phases out for the new over a week at no cost, but until that's done you get no benefit from either taboo. When the new taboo is in place, you get one dot of relevant Influence free. Removing a taboo entirely does not regain you XP from it, and you have to pay again if you later want to take on a new taboo. This is why most spiritualists don't just shed their powers easily. Further, you may never change your initial taboo from your first initiation. Spirits can sense when you break a tboo, and it pisses them off. However, other than this, the only penalties for breaking your taboos are loss of Essence recharge and being cut off from the associated Influence for a while. You gain new Influences either by taking on new patrons (with all the spiritual transgressions involved) or by gaining new taboos or committing horrible sacrifices. You are limited in how many Influence dots you can have, but your initial 3 dots don't count towards the limit. Additional dots besides these three are only temporary and are lost once used. Each time you use an Influence besides your initial one, you lose one dot in that Influence. This does not reduce or mitigate any Essence costs, however. Additional taboos are the easiest way to gain new power, as noted above, but the taboo and Inlfuence you gain from it must be symbolically or directly related somehow. Gaining Influences via spirit dealings requires you to perform transgressive acts as discussed as well as gaining a new taboo. Spirits often require additional payment on top of this, and the cost always includes a Breaking Point regardless of what you have to do. However, if you accept and fulfill your side, you gain Influence dots based on the spirit's rank and power. If the pact included future actions or terms which you then violate, you immediately violently expel all Essence in your body (along with a number of bodily fluids) and are incapable of doing anything at all until you're out of Essence. You also lose all access to Influences for a full month. If you do something to make another human suffer and fail a Breaking Point, you get an additional dot of Influence releating to what you did or the character that suffered the Breaking Point. Lastly, you may also gain power via killing someone and ingesting part of them. If you sacrifice a human and eat of their flesh and drink of their lbood, you gain dots of Influence basede on their Resolve, which must somehow be related to the victim (such as Health for a doctor or Money for a banker). You need not completely consume your victim, but you do need to eat and drink until you're full. This is always a Breaking Point, and always at a sizeable penalty. Spirits gain power by becoming patrons of Shadow occultists, though they rarely reveal this to their humans. Each time an occultist uses their Influence, the patron spirit gains Essence as if feeding on a rich vein of resonance. Further, the link between Flesh and Shadow gives them a certain amount of camouflage, anchoring them in the physical world safely. Werewolves get a penalty to notice or track the spiritual patrons of Shadow occultists. Next time: Idigam
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Sep 2, 2019 17:26
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Not sure I understand what the human gains from this pact, but that's probably because I don't know the system behind Forsaken. Was the spirit ecology - why they each other, how they're born, classification, society - described in the.main book?
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Sep 2, 2019 19:32
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The benefit is Influences. Influence (Dogs) 3, for example, lets you command and control dogs and doggy things. At high enough levels of Influence you can even summon the thing into existence from nothing. Influence can be over near anything, so it's very flexible and powerful. As for the spirit ecosystem, essentially, Essence is produced by symbolic resonance from the world of Flesh, producing a twisted mirror of the world in Spirit. When enough Essence builds up, spirits pop into existence from it accumulating. Those spirits consume Essence of the same flavor as theirs, and as they grow they tend to eat other spirits of the same type because that's easier than feeding on ambient Essence. The more powerful they are, the broader their symbolism tends to be, as they start consuming related concepts to get enough Essence to survive. Spirit "society" is basically a set of spirit courts led by the dominant spirits of a region overseeing a nest of related spirits that have sworn fealty to them and survive by paying an Essence tithe in return for protection. Spirits come in choirs of related concepts, and those tend to associate with each other, but not totally, because they also eat each other. Spirit politics are very much about territory, encouraging your favored resonance and protection.
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Sep 2, 2019 21:24
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So a spirit could provide influence over, like, Commerce? Or is that too abstract for them and would probably be Greed instead?
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Sep 2, 2019 21:41
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wiegieman posted:So a spirit could provide influence over, like, Commerce? Or is that too abstract for them and would probably be Greed instead?
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Sep 2, 2019 21:44
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Wealth is an example Influence you could have.
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Sep 2, 2019 22:00
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So what level influence do you need to summon infinite puppies to distract your enemies?
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Sep 2, 2019 23:41
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Moonwolf posted:So what level influence do you need to summon infinite puppies to distract your enemies? 5 is usually a safe bet.
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Sep 3, 2019 00:15
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Moonwolf posted:So what level influence do you need to summon infinite puppies to distract your enemies? Just distract?
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Sep 3, 2019 00:56
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Kobolds Ate My Baby!: Part VIII – Outfits Through the Editions AmiYumi posted:I pulled out a bunch of previous-edition books to double-check, and KAMB! has been all over the drat place since the beginnings on what Outfits are and do. The next update, which I should have up in a day or two, has changed to be a comparison post instead because there is no consistency at all for a game that has otherwise been "pretty much the same but with new art and slight improvements" for 20 years. Outfits, Indulgences, and Edition Wars As mentioned in that between-updates quote, Outfits are probably the biggest thing to change between editions, going from their introduction as “Indulgences” in 1e’s More Things to Kill and Eat, their formalization as part of the base game in 3e (but still not in their current state), all the way to the Outfitsplosion of KAMB: In Color!!!. Indulgences in 1e were very very limited, and meant to be purchased in 2-3 title chains. They still cost 10 VP each, and the thought of keeping one of these toothy little hellions alive long enough to spend more than 30 VPs is just...what kind of game are you playing in. 3e upped the cost of Outfits to 12 VPs each, and got closer to the “modern” version of the rules (where, remember, Outfits are 9 VPs), but still...well, let’s take a closer look at a few in particular: Kobold Veteran:  The KAMB: In Color!!! write-ups place a lot more emphasis on the Outfits being “the clothes make the kobold” Orkiness over meritocratic promotion, and describes the kobold as having gotten through their day of military training via extensive use of punches, Bully, and finally just wandering off bored and pinning a bunch of medals and ribbons and calling themselves a Veteran anyway. Veterans can pull rank and order a “weapons inspection” to trade weapons with another kobold (though they can take a KHDC a refuse), and get Bully, Duel!, or Sport. The Veteran of 3rd Edition had the ability to swap weapons, but had a description that played things much more straight, and gave the kobold a 6 Armor Hits Cookpot helmet instead of pins/medals or an extra Skill. Super Deluxx Edition functioned exactly the same. The Veteran indulgence in 1e had no description whatsoever and got a 3 DAM axe. That is all.  Lots of variation in the editions, with the biggest difference really coming in KAMB: In Color!!! handing out less in the way of physical items. So let’s look at another one. Evil Apprentice The “wizard” of the game, this has shared the requirement of the Lackey! Skill in every edition, but little else. The 1e version is the simplest, stating only that the Apprentice learns how to read, and can scribe any spellpages/scrolls (which are on the random gear list, remember) into their spell book. 3e states that the Apprentince cannot wear armor, because the rules say so, and gives them 1 Armor Hit robes, 2 spellpages, and the kobold learns a random spell. The KAMB: In Color!!! version of the Apprentice put on their robe and wizard hat (still 1 Armor Hit), clarifies that their magic changes any other armor they try to put on changes to a robe (and wizard hat), and gives them the ability to “prepare” new spells whenever back in the caves (re-roll which spell they know). They can also make a 2 difficulty Ego roll to not take a KHDC when casting a spell. Super Deluxx was in-between, with the armor text being the same as 3e but the rules text working the same as KAMB: In Color!!!, but the Ego roll was difficulty 3 (so much less likely). Again, all different, with the changes trending against handing out stuff and towards handing out abilities. Next Time: running through the rest of the Outfits, and House Rules [Edit: Forgot to check Super Deluxx Edition, added it in.] AmiYumi fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Sep 3, 2019 |
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Sep 3, 2019 02:18
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I remembered and then forgot to deal with the F&F thread close today, so I'll be giving a respite until 9/9.
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Sep 3, 2019 05:16
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Uh what?
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Sep 3, 2019 05:24
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Xiahou Dun posted:Uh what?
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Sep 3, 2019 05:31
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this should give me time to bash out the rest of X-risks at least. speaking of which...   ECLIPSE PHASE - X-RISKS - THIS TIME IT'S BOO-URNSONAL Predator  the text on this pic is worth reading Threat level - Red This is basically a 'generic exhuman' stat block. The predator is kind of the archetypal exhuman, a survival-of-the-fittest dickhead who just pays for his fitness. It's one of the more believable things in the book, because it would be primarily rich dickhead kids who would do this stuff if they could, it's the same demographic as trophy hunting is in real life. Hunting the 'deadliest prey' without any real risk to yourself. Like the chat bubble says, the main weakness of the exhuman body is the brain inside it. Not a super interesting entry in lore terms, mostly because we've already covered exhumans extensively, but useful for representing a wide-range of predator-type guys. Puppet  i dont think you can do the cool neck snap move on robots Threat level - Variable Puppets are humans reprogrammed by the TITANs. They're not exsurgents, they are more subtle than that. They're used for a variety of things, from full on covert ops, directing entire nations as leaders, or just being a janitor with a backdoor in his brain that makes him lock the door on you when you're in danger. A lot of them don't even know they're sleeper agents. The problem with this entry is the two stat blocks it gives (Sleeper agent and elite agent) are just regular characters. There was basically no point giving them stats, because being a TITAN sleeper agent is more of a story element than a statistical one. I don't know what purpose listing 'Behavioral modification: Awareness block' on a stat sheet has, but they did it. You could just take any NPC and then say they're a sleeper agent. I don't think the player will ever get to look at the character sheet to see that it says they're one. Self-replicating Nanoswarm  Threat level - Ultraviolet So uh, this is the exact same thing as the creeper. Remember how I said the fractal was very similar to the creeper and seemed redundant? Well, at least the fractal was a different shape. The nanoswarm is exactly the same as the creeper, even down to its powers being basically 'does whatever it wants'. Shifter  how can you hug your kids with knifeclear arms? Threat level - Red Shifters are an exsurgent, but this time instead of being fleshy, it's a robot! This is the type of exsurgent virus you can catch if you're a synthmorph, so don't think you can go tapdancing around Earth just because you're a robot. It will get you, and it will turn you into the T-1000. The picture is kind of misleading, according to the description they mostly use their mimic powers to impersonate other humans, then only make weapons when they're revealed. Unless that shifter in the pic was impersonating a famous robot with knives for hands. Statistically it's just a synthmorph npc, but with the power of mimicry, and a superior version (twice as fast and more sophisticated stuff) of the Shaper morph's abilities. Again, it feels kind of redundant. This is the third mimic monster in the book, and the second exsurgent mimic monster. At least this one isn't also made of acid, and can turn its hands into guns. Skitter  Threat level - Red The creeper was a femtoswarm, the nanoswarm was a.. nanoswarm, and now the Skitter is a microswarm. These are lil bug bots who go around in big groups being fuckers. They have blinding laser beams (to blind you with), toxin injectors (which make you hallucinate, which is mechanically represented by placing your character under GM control lmao), and 'sabotage', which just lets them gently caress up mechanical stuff and people faster. They also have an ability called 'Harry', which involves them 'clustering around eyes and orifices', so enjoy having a sabotage bug crawl up your rear end in a top hat. I am looking forward to the impending milliswam, swarm, centiswarm, and megaswarm. Skrik  they really muddled this concept by having the pic be an infected novacrab Thread level - Yellow Skrik is both the name of the exsurgent virus strain, and the little bastards it produces. Infectees experience no outward physical changes (apparently), but are mentally subverted (but it does not say how). Every few days they puke up 2-6 mini versions of themself, sometimes with small variations based on environment (wings, claws, stingers etc). These mini versions aren't sapient, but can use tools (???). Once they're puked up they run away and hide, forming secret nests like an evil version of the Borrowers. I like the idea but it doesn't go into anywhere near enough details about these things. It doesn't tell you what the infectee does, it doesn't tell you what the lil babies do, it just says they are evil and make nests. Later on in the back of the book, there is an entry for rules for the skrik virus (and some others) which says that infectees try and spread the virus by catching the little guys they puke up, then putting them in other peoples meals!? "Oh hey tony, made you some noodles, ignore the little guy in there, it's just for decoration". Wouldn't it be easier to spread the virus by just having them be regular infectious like a common cold or something? Why bother with the little guys if they're just there to get cooked? Slouch  Threat level - Red Slouches are alien robots with claws and gun turret shoulders. Their main goal in this life is to take control of the pandora gates and prevent people coming through. To do this they set up traps and defenses, and proactively hunt down and gently caress up anyone who gets past them. Some people have seen them excavating alien relics on some worlds, for unknown reasons. Most people think they are some type of TITAN robot, but they aren't. In fact, any time the slouches do meet TITAN stuff, they completely take the TITAN poo poo to clown town. One of their turrets is a laser, and the other is a tractor beam that can push or pull. They like to do a neat trick where two slouches team up to tear something apart with their beams. To maintain their mysteriousness they carry little bombs inside them that go off if they are disabled or tampered with. This means nobody knows if they are AI controlled, remotely controlled, or even just actual aliens in synthmorph bodies. Personally I think they probably have the right idea trying to stop humans from messing up the whole gate network, and I wish them the best. Smart Mines  Threat level - Yellow Smart mines are real dickheads. They're designed to cripple, not kill, so they will grab onto you and calibrate their explosive payload to blow off or cripple a limb. Then they wait for your comrades to show up to help you so they can ambush them too. The description even says they do medicine on you so you don't bleed out, but the stat sheet does not represent this ability at all. Apparently they will also torture you if you are too stubborn to call your friends, but it doesn't say how. They seem over-engineered as poo poo to me. The most twisted thing of all is that while most people think they are TITAN inventions, the truth is that it was really MAN ALL ALONG WHO INVENTED SMART MINES!!!! Snapper  he's trying to eat the text box! stop him! Threat level - Red These are the big daddy versions of the extractor snake from earlier. They're formed from synthmorphs infected with yet another TITAN nanoplague. Their main gimmick is that instead of walking normally, they are so flexible and so covered in legs that they just roll around in a really hosed up confusing way, like they are constantly falling down the stairs. They're pretty crude, most of them just attack by being a big metal snake and biting people, but others are equipped with railguns. I guess its another titan robot thing to throw on the pile, if the little version is too weak. This one does not have the power of stealing your cortical stack, however. It will just roll on you till you die. THAT'S IT FOR NOW CAUSE I'M REALLY SLEEPY, NEXT TIME ON ECLIPSE PHASE XRISKS: MORE TITAN ROBOTS, AND SOME ALIENS FROM VIDEO GAMES!
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Sep 3, 2019 07:07
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These entries are just so ... boring? The writers create a setting with so much potential and then they just go and write a crappier version of the monstrous manual.
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Sep 3, 2019 07:55
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JcDent posted:a "globalized fetish thread" Do I want to know?
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Sep 3, 2019 09:53
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:Do I want to know? You don't.
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Sep 3, 2019 09:58
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Ithle01 posted:These entries are just so ... boring? The writers create a setting with so much potential and then they just go and write a crappier version of the monstrous manual. Hey, the author is really afraid of centipedes. Really afraid.
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Sep 3, 2019 11:42
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juggalo baby coffin posted:
I think the biggest difference is that you can  a Nanoswarm and have it work, somewhat - or at least enough to make it gently caress off for a while. That, and the things need air or water to get around, unlike a Creeper. They can also be printed out of a standard nanofabricator, I think, giving them the ability to show up anywhere that could be hacked, on paper at least. In practice, probably much harder to hax aboard.Ithle01 posted:These entries are just so ... boring? The writers create a setting with so much potential and then they just go and write a crappier version of the monstrous manual. The concept at least needed to be split across 3 different books to give enough time and space to each - Exsurgents and TITAN Gribblies, Exhuman and Transhuman Bullshit and Alien Exoplanet Fuckery. The thing is crammed into too small a space, making it so none can really get the coverage to work.
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Sep 3, 2019 12:30
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Ithle01 posted:These entries are just so ... boring? The writers create a setting with so much potential and then they just go and write a crappier version of the monstrous manual. The 'Monster Manual' part of X-Risks was pretty dull, in part because it was 90% just reprinted info from other books. In the core book the various 'monsters' are compact entries often no more than a column long under the appropriate heading to suggest what you can have the players run into in the game. The entire list of Exsurents fits on slightly more than a page, as do the TITAN machines.
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Sep 3, 2019 12:37
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I could run a quick mini campaign with that Predator conversation, no Titans or virus bullshit just hunting down killer body crafting edgelords and bringing them in.
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Sep 3, 2019 13:32
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Xiahou Dun posted:Uh what? I'll be archiving the thread and starting anew, it was announced about a week-and-a-half back.
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Sep 3, 2019 14:06
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Career Compendium Hunger for Burgher It's true: The various laborers, peasants, and tradesmen are the most likely classes to give you something less useful for your first career. Of all the 1st Tiers in the game, these are the most likely to be disappointing. But most aren't, and that's impressive in its own way. The reason these classes usually end up useful anyway is simple: WHFRP is a game where (especially in your 1st Career) you want to avoid combat if you didn't have any reason to be in combat. You might swing your weight around later in a campaign, but if you're starting on a 1st Career, your party isn't likely to be heavily equipped, heavily armored, or heavily trained to win fights without taking damage or risking their lives. Most characters are also decent enough on starting WS or BS to grab a hand weapon and pitch in when the fighting starts or hang back and try to hit something with a crossbow. A peasant PC with an okay starting WS and a shield is still another person on the line, either getting you Outnumber or preventing Outnumber. Meanwhile, someone who brings a bunch of social, mercantile, and investigative skills to a team can help you avoid having to do that in the first place. Plus, a lot of WHFRP involves investigating various flavors of intrigue, double dealing, and wizard crime. Oh, and a lot of the 'civilian' careers get the unique FLEE! Talent, and getting +1 Movement Rate when trying to run away from danger can be a lifesaver. And many can go into much more adventurous 2nd Tiers. Let's look at an excellent example of a more-useful-than-expected 1st Tier. The Servant. The Servant gets a great (for 1st tier) WP and Agi advance, since they have to put up with endless bullshit from spoiled rich bastards. They're okay in a fight, and a lifetime of dodging flung cutlery has actually given them Dodge Blow just like a warrior, which is absolutely wonderful to get early in a 'non-combat' track. Most characters have to do a warrior career or get high up on being a thief to get Dodge. They're observant, they can be decent at thieving or literate (honestly, another career where you might stick around and buy some of the X or Y choices), they may know a lot about the rules and social graces of the upper crust, and in general they give you an excellent foundation to become a skilled thief or spy. Career Compendium also adds a special bonus Talent for them: They can always use stealth as if they had the skill (and they get a +10 bonus above and beyond the norm if they have the skill) if they have an appropriate uniform for a low-ranking person in the building or party they're trying to infiltrate. A Servant knows how to avoid attention and blend in. As for Exits, they can become an Innkeeper (which is actually a very decent social/merchant 2nd Tier), a Spy (Obvious, and their skills build into it very well), or they can enter the Thief track or become Burghers, Agitators, etc if they want to try other 1st tier tracks. Their new fluff is mostly about how the people of the Old World generally don't consider Servants to be important or skilled people; most have no hope of advancement and are stuck where they are. As a result, they're one of the most likely social classes to quit their job, buy a second-hand sword or axe, and go chance it all on adventure. After all, an adventurer is allowed to hit annoying, screaming things that torment them with an axe. Most Servants can only dream of having it that good. I cannot overstate how helpful starting with Dodge out of nowhere is. Combine that with that excellent new Talent and suddenly Servant is a really good foundation for a Thief or a Spy. They were a decent starting class before that got added, but given the degree of skullduggery often involved in WHFRP, 'I'm better at blending in crowds to watch people unseen' is really great. Tradesman is a good example of a somewhat less useful starting Career. They're still not terrible; you at least know some important mercantile skills and you can read and write. As for why I keep emphasizing having a merchant around is helpful, remember that you sell items at their full value plus bonuses if your character doing the selling is good at bargaining. And get less than half their value if you're not. The difference between dumping off plunder for 110% of its list price and getting paid 20% of it is huge. Not only that, but each DoS on a Haggle check when buying gets you 10% off. Given how badly you need money and how expensive big equipment upgrades are? Someone knocking 20 or 30% off the price of a suit of armor is saving the party the pay they could reasonably expect from an entire adventure. Anyway, so the Tradesman is at least quite good at the mercantile skills. The issue is mostly that there are very few rules for actually using Trade skills to make things, or to make money in your off-days. This was intentional, apparently; the designers were afraid that it would bypass the money system or end up a big, complicated subsystem that didn't add much, and they were more interested in rules for adventures than rules for day jobs. Still, it kind of kicks Tradesmen and Engineers and the sort in the shins. Yes, they're good merchants, but their two starting Trade skills are mostly just flavor and won't matter much to the game as a result. Sure, they can go into Artisan and get Artistic and become amazing at making art, but mechanically that doesn't really do anything. They're not useless; the merchant side is legitimately useful. But the big ticket part of their Career (their skilled trades) don't do anything. They can still go into full Merchant or Engineer, and Artisan is at least a very short 2nd Tier and then goes into the excellent Guildmaster, but the lack of things to do with skilled trades in the game hurts them. Their fluff is primarily about the importance of guilds and professional organizations in the Empire. One of the reasons everyone has Gossip as a human is because professional life in the Empire is intensely social. Village or city, you bargain with people, work with people, and have to navigate people. In fact, let's talk about the Guildmaster, because they're the 3rd Tier a lot of 'civilian' tracks aim for. They give a good example of what a non-combatant 3rd Tier PC looks like. They still get a 2nd attack (for some reason, not complaining), +10 WS, +10 BS, 0 Str, +10 Tough, +15 Agi, +30 Int, +20 WP, and +35 Fel. Yep, +35 Fel. Also +5 Wounds, still. They're amazing at politics, personal interaction, and mercantile skills. They know a hell of a lot of languages because they're the sorts of people who do international business. They know how to deal with the upper and lower classes both. In short, if you need to talk your way out of problems or navigate the world of the wealthy and powerful, a PC Guildmaster can definitely do it. They're not great warriors like some other 3rd Tiers, but having a social wizard who is extremely intelligent and perceptive on your team is a great help with the way WHFRP usually plays out. And that 2nd attack and +10 WS means they can still hold their own when a team has to fight. A lot of 3rd Tiers that aren't strictly warriors still get +1 Attacks. Also, they are masters of the Secret Language (Guild Tongue). To the point that the book says anyone who doesn't speak Guild Tongue needs a translator to deal with the intense levels of managerese and business jargon at any high-ranking guild meeting. Directly quoting: "For the next meeting I'd like Zigmund and Greta to jointly present a seminar on realizing productivity targets through actionable cost-containment initiatives." Synergizing to synthesize paradigm shifts, people. It's how you get ahead. I don't generally like the Secret Languages but business-speak is funny, at least. Most of their fluff is on the sorts of Guilds that dot the Empire and what sort of Guildmaster they look for. Crafters and Builders demand the Guildmaster be a good Crafter or Builder. Labor Guilds are looked down on and are generally more militarized because it's harder to enforce a Guild's restrictions on labor than it is to enforce rules about selling tangible product. Commercial Guilds include banks and handle loans, which can give them a lot of power. It can also make them targets; you're loaning a lot of money to a noble, the noble has a lot of power that might make it difficult to collect. Thinking about it, I remember the bit in Realms of Sorcery about many Witch Hunters being chartered officials of specific nobles, with a financial incentive to investigate targets the noble wants investigated. I'd bet that's a great way to make your debts disappear, sending a Hunter to look around for heresy and Chaos in the bank that owns them. In general, most of the higher tiers for the peasant/laborer/tradesman type careers either take them into an adventuring track (for instance, Charcoal Burners become Scouts most of the time and become skilled ranger types) or take them into politics and money. WHFRP being what it is, politics and money are useful things for your team to have on their side. Add to that just enough ability with weaponry and things to help out when the team gets into a fight, and these classes are perfectly useful. Also, almost all laborer/professional types can exit into Militiaman, which is a very short and fairly easy to do 1st tier warrior if you just want to grab Dodge Blow and the basics of combat quick. Militiaman isn't a great Career on its own merits, but it's a great dip/roundhouse for non-warriors who want to hold their own. Whether you go into the exciting worlds of crime, spying, and adventure or end up a social powerhouse, starting out as an ordinary work-a-day type is hardly the downside you'd think it'd be for a WHFRP adventurer. Next Time: Rangers
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Sep 3, 2019 15:18
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Leftovers' special implies that exhumans cut up off the shelf morphs instead of growing them custom. You'd think dickheads rich enough to do it would be able to skip that step and just engineer the MK III Edgelord.
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Sep 3, 2019 15:24
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JcDent posted:Leftovers' special implies that exhumans cut up off the shelf morphs instead of growing them custom. You'd think dickheads rich enough to do it would be able to skip that step and just engineer the MK III Edgelord. Plebs engineer their morphs. If you really wanna murder people in style, you need artisanal hand-sutured killing machines made from inethically sourced morphs, so fresh they're still screaming. In a post-scarcity society, the greatest luxury is human labor.
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Sep 3, 2019 15:45
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Night10194 posted:Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Career Compendium
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Sep 3, 2019 15:57
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:I like that WHFRP lets you build Agent 47 from Hitman. Servant to Spy to Assassin is a simple 3 Career track. Servant is sort of my archetype (along with normal Peasant but that got covered in Paths of the Damned due to Katiya) for 'this sounds like it'd be a terrible starting class but actually it's good'. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Sep 3, 2019 |
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Sep 3, 2019 15:58
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Peasant is great! So I related the story about Mike Pondsmith getting barred from a convention in the CP2077 thread, and someone asked me where I heard it. I realized it's basically an urban legend I've been repeating. Anyone have a source on that?
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Sep 3, 2019 16:03
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Peasant being great is part of why I say the WHFRP Career system (and the knock-on effects from balancing 1st Tiers) makes the setting surprisingly non-elitest for a fantasy setting. In the RPG, at least. The ordinary is valuable. 'Ordinary' men and women are given skills and talents that are actually really useful for having fantasy adventures, because making it in life as a peasant in a fantasy world actually would make you pretty able. Non-elite skills and professions are valued, and the social elite aren't treated as more powerful from a game perspective. They have social standing, and many of them learn how to try to keep it or how to navigate among others with elite status, but it's not 'more powerful' to roll Noble vs. Peasant. The classes just do different things, because they learned different things growing up. It's an interesting touch for a fantasy setting.
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Sep 3, 2019 16:31
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Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon Utter Nonsense This chapter is on the legacy of Wolf - the idigam and the geryo. First up, the idigam. When Wolf defeated them, banishing them to the moon or driving them deep within the Earth, they were never expected to return. There was no plan for if they managed to free themselves. Guess what! They have! They are creatures born of impermanence that are now forced to coalesce by the nature of the world, and they kinda hate it. They twist the world around them to produce Essence that sutis their alien hungers and needs, and they can have practically any abilities. They're very hard to predict. Worse, they are able to wield and control Essence on a level that other spirits don't even comprehend. These abilities are on top of the ones they have in the core book, which basically give them wide-ranging ability to mutate stuff and resist various things. An idigam is able to break a spirit's Essence apart in order to create a number of lesser beings. This is very easy on a willing spirit, and requires a roll against an unwilling one. This takes the target spirit and destroys them, replacing them with two spirits of one rank lower. Both are independent beings, but the idigam can merge them back together any time as long as they're touching. An idigam can also choose to divide itself this way, but divided idigam aren't independent - they are connected in a hive mind, each operating towards the unified idigam's goals. Certain idigam are able to resurrect the dead with Essence, too - well, sort of. These can raise any corpse they perceive, no matter how far gone, by infusing them with living Essence. The resurrected dead is not truly alive, but rather a puppet of the idigam, unable to resist their commands at all. The idigam can withdraw their unnatural life at any time. However, these resurrectees do retain their personalities and skills from life. They can't restore Willpower except by eating human flesh, regaining all of their Willpower when they consume a single human corpse. Idigam are also able to place a small portion of their own power into objects, called reliquaries. They are able to take any single ability they possess and merge it with a bit of their own corpus, shoving them into an object. Anyone holding the object can now use that power, using the idigam's dicepool if needed. The idigam must pay up to half the Essence cost of any power, while the rest is paid by the user; anyone without Essence must spend a Willpower instead, and the idigam must decide to pay the whole Essence cost for them to successfully use the object. An idigam may pay a bunch of Essence to teleport to any of its created reliquaries, no matter the distance or who has the object, even if it's in another realm of existence. They can destroy the reliquary with a touch, and if a reliquary is destroyed for any reason, the corpus stored within it is restored to the idigam, though if destroyed by anyone but the idigam itself, they also take 1A. Lastly, idigam can entirely unmake spirits, rendering them into their component Essence. Their prey must either not be resisting or must be incapacitated for this to work, and it costs them Willpower to do. Once done, however, it quickly dissolves the spirit into Essence based on its power and rank, which lingers for a scene. This Essence can be accessed by anyone present as if it were a Locus, though honestly it's likely to just get eaten real quickly by the idigam or its servants. Besides this, some idigam are able to do stuff like grab folks across the Gauntlet and drag them over, shove someone into a hole in the Gauntlet to hold them in suspended animation for a while, or render a group of humans around them much more susceptible to persuasion that furthers the idigam's plans for a month or so.  Wednesday Addams, is that you? Anaba'hi is an idigam who has always been fascinated by the ever-changing yet brief and impermanent nature of life, evolution and extinction. Before her imprisonment, she felt possessive over the chemistry of living beings, feeling a strange compulsion towards them that she had never felt towards the spirits that followed after her. When the werewolves first appeared, she felt an immediate dislike for these ravenous beasts of destruction who, she felt, altered the natural progression of life with magic and violence. They took beautifully coarse flesh and mixed with such boringly pure spirit. Worst of all, they threatened her "children" of flesh, and so she struggled with Wolf's scions over who would rule physical life. She lost. Wolf hurled her to the moon, where she fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of the world she should have had. She missed the first moon landing, awakening too late to ride it home. However, the breach in the moon-prison was enough - she grabbed onto a passing piece of space debris, a chunk of ice and rock that she rode slowly towards her beloved Earth. The arc of the thing's fall meant she didn't get back until 2016, when she plummeted through the sky. Anaba'hi was enraged by what she saw - a world that changed in what, to her, was barely an instant. Rather than slow but wonderful possibility, she found hatred, mass production, depression, environmental collapse and war. The Flesh and Shadow were torn apart, their potential forever split from each other. Worse, she was now being forced to coalesce into a shape with form, the world weighing on her very nature. As she thrashed in Shadow, she managed to find something strange and new to her - spirits of hope and wonder, fragile things born from the existence of children. This would be her anchor in a changed world, and she devoured them, coalescing as she did. She has fixated on a young girl named Shalinah, who saw the shooting star that brought Anaba'hi home and delighted at its sight. Shalinah is a student at Sanctuary Boarding School in Sussex, England, and now, so is Anaba'hi...sort of. The idigam has suffused her Essence through the school's foundation, planting herself in the soil, buildings, flora and fauna. She has turned the young Shalinah into her first herald. Her coalescence has given her form and purpose: save the perfect souls of these children, hollow out and "improve" the adults to protect them. Sanctuary School is pretty much entirely under her control now, and she is seeking to expand to other local schools. Anaba'hi is utterly obsessed with purity and innocence. She collects the souls of children that she might protect them from harm, pain and suffering. All of it. The school grounds have a deep sense of uneasiness about them, thanks to her. The classes go on, the students play on breaks, but the teachers are nervous and forgetful. Some students, their souls collected for care by the idigam, stand on the sidelines, serving as sentinels to keep watch for threats or intruders. Anaba'hi is completely ruled by her obsession, and while she is very potent, her inability to move away from her precious children leashes her. She expands outward only slowly, always looking for more wards to cherish. Each school she infests increases the risk of werewolves noticing her existence and trakcing her down. Typically, Anaba'hi works by possessing her hollowed-out servants. She has a stable of teachers whose souls she has devoured for when she must be an authority figure, and she will easily hop between staff bodies to manage the experiences of any visitors to her domain. When wearing a mortal mask, she prefers to appear as an 11-year-old girl with pale skin, long brown hair and two unnaturally symmetrical braids, plus a spotless school uniform that appears in places to merge with her flesh. She isn't especially good at emulating human emotion, and her smile is never genuine. Her eyes are always dead. Her mannerisms and actions are essentially her desperately copying the kids around her as best she can. In her true form, she looks nothing like this, having coalesced in the woods where she found Shalinah. She instead appears as a chimeric mass of furred skin and dreadlocks that sprout from the crown of her head and fall about her like a boar's mane, shambling about. She has a tangled rack of antlers, coated in moss and cobwebs, and her elongated head has a mouth of sharp, immense teeth and four eyes on each side. The woods around the school are infested with Anaba'hi's spirit-spawn, both pure spirits she's made as servants and strange Claimed she's made out of the animals. These serve as her early warning system against unwanted intruders, generally taking the form of strange chimerical beasts (such as meat-eating deer or glowing plants). They aren't super huge or overly dangerous to a werewolf, but more than capable of killing and devouring human threats. This and the other things she does mean that she's growing less able to conceal herself as she expands. She's created servants from the staff and students, using modern tools to help track down new potential territories full of innocents for her to protect and add to her collection...but while Sanctuary has a tradition of exclusive secrecy, other schools usually don't. For now, she is grudgingly allowing her pet children to leave at the end of each term or go home for holidays, but her jealousy and protectiveness are only growing. Anaba'hi is a rank 4 idigam. She is extremely strong and, for an idigam, relatively subtle. She has Influence (Children) 4 and is especially good at hollowing out humans and other living creatures to be her servants or making spirits to obey her. She has extremely good control over human emotions and beliefs, as well as the power to terrify them or make them hallucinate, and is pretty good at warping flesh to serve her purposes. Her Ban is that she must always remain in the presence of one of her Forged servants or a wild animal she has altered with her powers, and outside their presence she is significantly weakened in combat. Her Bane is fresh, green wood from the grove where she fell to Earth. Next time: The False Idol and the Constant Formless
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Sep 3, 2019 17:03
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JcDent posted:Leftovers' special implies that exhumans cut up off the shelf morphs instead of growing them custom. You'd think dickheads rich enough to do it would be able to skip that step and just engineer the MK III Edgelord. I read it as that a lot of these idiots are the equivalent of those morons with the walls of GPUs in the buttcoin threads - rich enough for a lot of consumer hardware, not really rich enough for that much bespoke work; not to mention, leftovers from experiments
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Sep 3, 2019 18:13
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Career Compendium Woodsy Folk One of the odd and interesting things about WHFRP is that almost everything in it is written as if a character was a human. This is very, very apparent when you get to the various 'Ranger' classes, which are perfect fits for elves and are very common starting Careers for elves...but are all written about being human. Meaning that the Woodsman's fluff is all about how they sometimes clash with the Wood Elves because they cut down trees and Wood Elves are considerably more proactive and violent than the Lorax. Despite the fact that the Woodsman Career is a common starting Career for elves. This sort of thing is the same stuff that leads to Liniel of Caledor: Elf Gunslinger. Which is even more common in WHFRP4e, because classes like Cavalry are some of the only ones available to Wood Elves, but assume that you are an Empire Pistolier, so it would seem to be fairly common for a Glade Rider to come trotting out of the forest, be exposed to handguns, then throw their longbow in the trash and start blowing beastmen's brains out. Not that I mind that element because it's fun, it's just a weird unintentional effect of almost all Careers' fluff assuming they're writing about humans. Anyway, Rangers are people who are good in forests and wilderness locations. They are often reasonably good fighters, too. Usually with a bow, though not always. Given Longbows are some of the best ranged weapons in 2e, this is hardly a problem. Rangers are best in the woods, yes, but they're helped out by something unique to 2e. 2e is the only WHFRP of the various percentile systems that does NOT treat stealth differently in urban and rural areas. That's right, for some insane reason, 4e went back to doing what 1e did and made Urban and Rural stealth different skills that you have to advance separately (and added Underground Stealth). In 2e, there are instead specific Talents that boosted your stealth skills in those environments (Tunnel Rat, Rover, and Alley Cat), but the general stealth skills work anywhere. Same for skills about tracked and following people. 2e still separates Move Silent and Concealment like the monsters they are (If you have a separate Hide and Sneak skill in your game, this is one of the sure signs you have too many skills) but they work anywhere. Thus, while a Ranger type is usually better (thanks to Rover giving them +10 in rural areas) in the woods, they're not bad at all at stalking and tracking in a city and that's always useful, too. The two marquee Rangers are the Hunter and the Woodsman. Both really showcase what makes a Ranger Career. The Hunter is an excellent shot (+15% BS in Career 1) but gets no bonus attacks, no Dodge, no Mighty Shot, etc. They're perceptive, good at stealth, good in the woods (as you'd expect), and they know how to use Longbows (and if you already had Longbow from being an Elf, you can take Hardy for +1 Wounds in its place!). They get good stat boost talents (they can take Lightning Reflexes OR Very Resilient, both great gets and worth sticking around to get both) and get Marksman if they don't want Rover immediately. A perfectly average human PC who went for everything they could get out of Hunter would hit BS 51% by the end of their first Career, and it isn't even a primary fighting Career. They also all get Rapid Reload, which is basically a core Talent to shooting the same way Strike Mighty is to melee. They're good shots, good at stealth, good at finding things and tracking, and they even know how to set traps and snares. Really solid starting Career (and the Career of the first PC I ever ran a full campaign for!). Amusingly, their fluff additions here talk all about how the horse, dog, and hawk help Hunters, but...they don't get Animal Training. Or Ride. So a Hunter can't actually use half the tools their additional fluff talks about here with just their first class. Most of their fluff is about the tools they use, but also talks about how many Hunters are employed as game wardens for the Imperial Forests. While lots of the Empire is open for common hunting, plenty of the best hunting grounds aren't. Even if the noble who owns them doesn't go hunting at all (which is becoming increasingly common as the Empire urbanizes, though hunting is still a traditional way to keep in shape and relax for nobles) no-one else is allowed to touch the game that belongs to them. The other real power of the Hunter is their Exits. For one, Hunters who want to be pure fighters who always remember their ranger skills can go into Soldier, which will fill in some more general abilities while being a pretty quick 2nd Career for them. Certainly a worthwhile option. Scout is the classic Ranger 2nd Tier, doing everything you want from a Ranger in one class (Gets all the Shooting talents, gets some decent melee ability, gets even better in the woods). And Targeteer is a really interesting 2nd Tier: It breaks a bunch of the normal 'stat caps' because it only does one thing. It shoots. It shoots really well. Targeteers get a massive +40 to BS in a 2nd Tier Career, plus +1 Attacks and all the Shooting talents like Mighty Shot and Sure Shot. If you just wanted to longbow some guys, Hunter to Targeteer can get you a 2nd tier PC with a 70-80 BS. More if you're an elf. The elfiest possible elf can hit BS 95% then and there and just never miss. The Woodsman is the other side of the coin. They're similarly good at doing Ranger things, but they're melee characters for their secondary combat focus instead. They get the rare and valuable Fleet Footed talent for one, and +10 WS and Str. Still no Dodge or second attack, and no Strike Mighty Blow; they're not primary fighters. They do get Two Handed Weapons and start with a great-axe in addition to their standard Hand Weapon and Dagger like most PCs, though. Unlike the Hunter, they focus on being athletic, fast, and ambushing enemies with a bigass axe while still being good enough in the forest to guide a party through. Their fluff actually talks about how their misunderstandings with the Wood Elves are just that; the average Imperial Woodsman isn't trying to clear-cut the forest. Most are devotees of Taal and Rhya, and most are careful to plant seeds as they work. They clear undergrowth, try to prevent forest fires, and try to nurture saplings so they'll have more wood to cut later. It's more likely that they'll cause friction just because Wood Elves are territorial and it's pretty likely a Woodsman might wander into their neck of the woods by mistake. Incidents over illicit logging camps or overreach are more political than environmental. Note that only applies with the Imperial Wood Elves. If you try to set up an illicit logging camp in parts of Bretonnia you end up with the ninja hillbilly elf equivalent of the Blair Witch Project happening to you instead. The example Woodsman is even an example of a human who gets on fine with his elf neighbors. Thangir Hrolkson was out playing in the forest near his home when he stumbled on a bunch of odd children singing songs and dancing in a nice grove. Both sides being kids, when he scampered over to join in, they let him. So he grew up learning Eltharin and playing with elf kids near Laurelorn while they taught him a bunch about the trees. Now he works for a local lord, helping keep the border between elf territory and his Lord's lands and helping to direct the logging operations such that they don't interfere with his friends. For the most part, both sides are happy; humans think he's weird, but the elves exchange gifts regularly and no-one gets shot, plus he's a good Woodsman. Scout is kind of the be all and end all of Ranger 2nd Tiers. You can get to it from a lot of places, and it sort of does everything you want a Ranger to do. Scouts are good shots (+20 BS), decent with a melee weapon (+20 WS), physically fit, agile, intelligent, and fairly brave. Their big weakness is they get absolutely 0 Fel and no people skills. The Career does make you a pretty good shot, though. And it teaches you Longbow and Rapid Reload if you didn't have it (Or Crossbow, but if you take Crossbow you are a fool; Repeater Crossbows are inexplicably terrible). Anything you didn't know about the wilderness you'll learn in Scout, which also means you have opportunities to pay for Skill+10 in a everything you knew coming into it. Scout is so omnipresent as a Ranger 2nd Tier that it's hard to think of a Ranger track that doesn't consider going into it at some point. Its fluff is pretty unspectacular, and it's just well designed to do exactly what it says it will do. They even get Dodge! More interesting is an option you get from Terror in Talabheim. The Knight of the Verdant Field is a 2nd Tier Ranger, and very unusual for an Imperial Knight. These are an order of Myrmidians, rather than Taalites or Rhyans. Originally, they were a branch of the Knights of the Blazing Sun, Myrmidia's famous Imperial Templars, stationed to defend the Drakwald Forest and Talabheim. Being decent strategists, they came to study the area and quickly concluded that 'dense, dark German forest' is not a good environment for standard heavy cavalry. Studying how other forces that fought in similar environments succeeded, the Order's leadership came to the conclusion they would be best off retraining as rangers, ambushers, and archers to try to mimic the style of the Laurelorn elves. Not only are they a pretty powerful and interesting variant on Scout (they have very similar stat advances available), they also say some neat stuff about Myrmidian Templars. They're open-minded enough to look carefully at what worked and why, and to retrain themselves into doing what they've observed. They're a curious mixture of the Woodsman and Hunter approach (and you can enter the Career from either), being significantly better in melee than the average Scout (they get Strike Mighty) but worse at ranged (no Rapid Reload, so if you didn't have it before 2nd Tier, you won't get it here and that really hurts your Longbow). They can also get Fleet Footed OR Keen Senses (and in reality, you'll stick around to get both) which is nuts. Keen Senses giving you +20% on all Perception tests is great, since it was originally a rules workaround to give animals and things good Per tests without them having high Int. Their one weakness is they can't Exit into any 3rd Tiers, but hey. You do Knight of the Verdant Field and Exit into Veteran or Scout, you'll finish it quick. They can also Exit into Myrmidian Priest if they wish, which is a neat option. I'd generally prefer to play one for the variety because otherwise Scout is the all-devouring roundhouse of Exactly What You Wanted As A Ranger for all Ranger tracks. Still, Rangers are very useful people to have around in WHFRP. Every character type is. Stealth, tracking, the ability to deal with dark forests full of Goatman Prime, and a decent ranged/secondary combat fallback makes for a heck of a teammate. And sometimes you're a Myrmidian Commando-Knight, so that's cool too. Next Time: Do Crimes
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JcDent posted:Leftovers' special implies that exhumans cut up off the shelf morphs instead of growing them custom. You'd think dickheads rich enough to do it would be able to skip that step and just engineer the MK III Edgelord. It takes something like 18 months to grow a new biomorph. I guess the resourceful exhumans are impatient.
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