|
LeSquide posted:What's up with Hedgecraft? The longest WHFRPG game I ever played had my poor hedge wizard staggering through horrible events next to two actual wizards, so I had always hoped those 2009 releases had given ye Olde folke Magick something interesting. I take it that's not the case? Hedgefolk talk a big game about how they're an enlightened, special pagan tradition 'held down' by the evils of the Orders and Colleges (which is already sort of nonsense since the Orders are hardly some crazy oppressive organization themselves), but their best spells are things like 'find a couple silvers' or 'Give someone +5% to Agi for a sec, but then they pass Toughness or get penalties for being sick'. The only worthwhile spell they know is one that makes a dagger do +d10 damage against Chaos enemies or worse forms of a few signature spells other Lores know. Just become a Witch like Syphan did, it rules. E: This is the level they'd have needed to be on to make Hedgefolk good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAh2fUo9W3M Night10194 fucked around with this message at 06:16 on May 10, 2020 |
#
?
May 10, 2020 06:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 01:57 |
|
|
Chapter 7: Battle, pt. 3 Degenesis Rebirth Katharsys Chapter 7: Battle In The Enemy's Sight Calculating Action Number You need to determine the number of dice you're going to roll by getting you Ability+Skill and fiddling with modifiers. Handling We already talked about this; can give bonuses or penalties. Wounds Do you have Trauma levels? That's 1D penalty per level for you! At least it's not penalizing Flesh Wounds, but still, welcome to the deathspiral!  Movement Movement is free, but if you moved more than 2m, you lose 2D. Environmental factors Only go up to -4D for stuff like fighting in full darkness. Ranks and Potentials quote:With over 100 ranks and over 80 Potentials, the Game Master cannot keep track of this for every player. He has to rely on his players knowing best what the Characters can do. The player whose turn it is picks relevant bonuses and adds them to the Action Number. Distance As we already talked, attacking outside the effective range is -4D. I wonder if I missed a bit that forbids this for melee. -4D to whack someone way outside the range of my sword? I like odds!  Encumbrance The difference between the weight of your poo poo and your BOD+Force score is the penalty you get in dice. It's one way to make encumbrance matter, but it doesn't sound great. Again, Johann has Encumbrance 2, so using Spitalian armor and a Splayer would set him at -3D on all actions before we factor in the weight of his other poo poo. Prepared Side section! It explains that while Action Number changes from fight to fight, you can glean the static part of it to make the process faster. Mainly, your handling won't change if you don't change your weapon, and you encumbrance penalty remains unless you either drop or take stuff. Healing Trauma takes a long time (future me editing this: oh God), so you can also consider it to be a constant part of your AN. ATTACK!! (sic) You determine the AN, you roll the dice, you count Successes and Trigger and tell the DM who “has already decided whether the target will defend actively or take the attack.” Does this imply that the GM has to decide on defense before seeing the rolls? Are Degenesis writers merely incapable of writing clear rules?  Passive We get a table for defense modifiers that don't require you to sacrifice an action. So you get base defense of 1, and you get 1 for being “active and on your feet.” I guess this Degenesis' roundabout way of saying that your passive defense is 2 if you're not asleep/unconcious/prone. Me, I would have set passive defense at 2 and then have the various conditions affect that, but I have yet to publish an RPG, so my word doesn't count for much. Curiously, the a defense bonus of 1 for partial cover includes shields (there's also a variable value here, so maybe shields themselves can have different defense stats?). The example gives us an Usudi who gets 3 from base, being awake and on his feet, and running towards the party. This means you need at least 3 Successes to hurt him. Active Defenses A repeat of “if sacrifice an unused action to defend,” but it doesn't mention that you need to roll a particular skill to defend, only that if you roll equal successes to attacker, you defend successfully. quote:If he gets more Successes and 3 Triggers in a melee, he manages a counterattack, but only if he has countered with a Skill instead of dodging with AGI +Mobility. This is the kind of poo poo editors are for. You should start that sentence with “If, in melee, you defend with...” and not slam the important info to the end. The example for this one doesn't include any active defenses, only that a dude armed with a Trailblazer decides to shoot the rushing Usudi despite the various penalties bringing his AN to 4. loving amazing. Two-Handed Combat A side section! quote:Only real pros and complete imbeciles enter combat with two weapons, one in each hand. Attacking with both weapons at the same time imposes a -4D penalty, and the rest of the dice are divided between the two weapons. If the first roll fails, you don't get to do the second. At least each attack counts as a separate action when it comes to defending against. Don't fight with two weapons, kids. The example posits an Usudi attacking Falberg with two bone daggers “probably made from his parents' bones” :cubone:. The Usudi has BOD+Melee of 9, which leaves him with 5 dice after the -4D dual-wield penalty. He sets 3D for the first attack and 2D for the second. Falberg actively defends from the first, wins, and makes the second attack miss as well. So you're incentivized to go hard on the first attack to actually pull it off... but then your second attack probably has a negligible amount of dice that is unlikely unlikely to overcome the basic defenses. Don't fight with two weapons, kids. Aimed attack Probably the worst written side-section of the whole book. So you may want to hit a Furor's fuel tank or a weak point in AMSUMO's armor. The DM has to increase the difficulty of attack or maybe give the target some active defense auto-successes “but it makes no difference.” quote:Most of the times, such a hit ignores the armor. What the gently caress is this bullshit. If you want an aimed attack in your hame, give us better rules than “yeah, assign arbitrary difficulty and come up with arbitrary effects.”  Next time: 'tis naught but a flesh wounde
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 06:42
|
|
|
Pakxos posted:I am very confused. From the little I knew about the Age of Sigmar, I thought Stormcast were kinda like magical animated golems with a hero's soul bonded (forged) to it. These pictures suggest they are much more flesh and blood than I was lead to believe. So, does Sigmar catch a soul, wack it with the hammer, throw it in an overgrown body and then give it the blinged out armor? They are flesh and blood under there. Part of the Reforging is making a new body for the Stormcast. But still, they can eat, sleep, dream, they fears, worries, and desires. They are human, which is why the reforging sucks for them as their humanity just starts going away. (Along with the pain and other things that happen during reforging.) The event Malign Portents came with a bunch of short stories for Age of Sigmar, and one of them gave a pretty good look at how awful the whole reforging process is, and why Sigmar wants to fix it. https://malignportents.com/story/the-price-of-apotheosis/
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 07:20
|
|
|
I dunno. All these amazing stories of WHFB and playing 100's of hours of BloodBowl and Warhams:War War Hammer Hammer II 2 gives so much weight that got all blew up it all to hell they did to the planet. There just seems no...soul to the AoS. I'm waiting on my copy of Oathmark but the kingdom building in that apparently has little to no fluff, because you're supposed to make your own. And it also lacks gunpowder. Comstar fucked around with this message at 07:46 on May 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 07:40
|
|
|
By popular demand posted:
 The princess Catchers are delightful and I'm stealing them for... something, I don't know what yet. I really hope they weren't entirely dealt with during a travelogue montage.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 08:14
|
|
never apologise, the best part of waking up is reading some silly fun.
|
Comstar posted:There just seems no...soul to the AoS. I think part of it is that like... WHFB, you've got this clearly defined map of the world, clearly defined cultures and peoples you can hate, agree with, disagree with, love, be ambivalent about, think about, etc. and very clearly defined stakes. If Chaos breaks through this time, then, say, Praag is hosed, or Karak Varn will never rise gloriously again, or if the Orcs win this fight, they'll burn down the Laurelorn or Nuln or something. It feels like a world with wonders, but a very clear and limited amount of them. AoS just seems to be a big ambiguous mess, "yeah here's GOODSPACE and BADSPACE and DEADSPACE okay things happen and there's an infinity space worlds." I mean great because you've got the space to jam in whatever you want, but it also kind of... dilutes everything. It's a bit like the oft-mentioned issue with Chaos and a lack of stakes and personality. Like 40k is BIG, but it's still bounded and defined, there's only one of world so and so, and if it gets hosed, a hojillion beings are still in for a bad time. With AoS it all just seems real vague.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 09:20
|
|
|
I feel the connection to WHFB doesn't help either - you could get away with this giant, crazy, vaguely defined setting if you played up how weird and exotic and strange it can all get once you start wandering into the unknown... but you can't if you know 99% of the worlds are just going to be leftover bits of the Old World now with silly names.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 10:01
|
|
|
I agree, now is the time to come up with strange new worlds and cultures that would not make sense in the Old World. Maybe even outsider races completely alien to the core worlds(or whatever the term is).
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 10:18
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:They are flesh and blood under there. Part of the Reforging is making a new body for the Stormcast. But still, they can eat, sleep, dream, they fears, worries, and desires. They are human, which is why the reforging sucks for them as their humanity just starts going away. (Along with the pain and other things that happen during reforging.) That right there speaks of a fundamental change in GW's writing direction as it feels like maybe even a decade ago it would have been 'Sigmar cares not for the the effect this has on his forged weapons, their memories are but a small price to pay in the war on Chaos blah blah blah' but instead showing that while there's a problem it's one the big guy is trying to rectify. Also the Drama is nice for a player if they want to tuck into that.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 13:13
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:AoS just seems to be a big ambiguous mess, "yeah here's GOODSPACE and BADSPACE and DEADSPACE okay things happen and there's an infinity space worlds." I mean great because you've got the space to jam in whatever you want, but it also kind of... dilutes everything. It's a bit like the oft-mentioned issue with Chaos and a lack of stakes and personality. Like 40k is BIG, but it's still bounded and defined, there's only one of world so and so, and if it gets hosed, a hojillion beings are still in for a bad time. With AoS it all just seems real vague. This is my feeling so far. I know nothing about AoS so far beyond vague hearsay and this thread, and so far none of this setting stuff feels like it means anything. Where's the history, the geography, the ordinary, non-heroic people going about their ordinary, non-heroic lives so you know where your extraordinary, heroic people come from and what they're fighting for? I'm running a game of the Warhammer RPG right now, and I spent more time writing up the foreign quarter of Altdorf, with descriptions of the Kislevite, Bretonnian, Tilean, and Estalian embassies, the temples to those foreign gods, and the local restaurants (including, recently, an Arabyan coffee house) than I did the details of a possible genuine prophet of Ulric who's trying to get the Ulrican church to knock off this toxic masculinity bullshit. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 13:49 on May 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 13:46
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:This is my feeling so far. I know nothing about AoS so far beyond vague hearsay and this thread, and so far none of this setting stuff feels like it means anything. Where's the history, the geography, the ordinary, non-heroic people going about their ordinary, non-heroic lives so you know where your extraordinary, heroic people come from and what they're fighting for? AoS is clearly cribbing Planescape, what with the portals and the gods being people that can be physically talked to and interacted with, but one of the things that made Planescape work was that Sigil is so crowded that the gods and demons had no choice but to get their boots muddy by associating with chaff. Here we're almost exclusively focusing on the larger-than-life figures. What's life like in one the Free Cities? What kind of food do they eat? How common are petty squabbles? What's the government like? Are there ratcatchers and beggars and filthy unwashed masses that believe in things like pig oracles? Granted, we're still at the character creation section, presumably lore and such will come later, and all of that could be colored in in further supplements. Froghammer fucked around with this message at 16:26 on May 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 14:22
|
|
|
The lore is where the real meat and potatoes are at for this book, I mean there's a whole chapter about how farming is done in the Realm of Fire section that the game uses as its default location. What I've read of those parts they've put a ton of effort into actually expanding how those places look and feel and what different kinds of cultures you can find in regions around the main city. It's obvious that the development for AoS was insanely rushed and incomplete and that constant hearsay of a lot of 1.0 information that is now more or less thrown out the window (include the maps, good lord those maps) has sorta damaged the settings reputation. Doesn't help that a lot of the expansion has also only happened in fiction outside of the game itself, an area most people don't look. Which is a shame because there's been a slew of good AoS books for the past couple of years that has covered a lot of on the ground aspects and not to mention given an interesting insight into how Chaos works as well. (Seriously, read Scourge of Fate, it's fantastic.) Also pretty sure Spear of Shadows served as inspiration as how Soulbound was made because it is pretty much a Soulbound campaign (sans the soulbinding).
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 14:39
|
|
|
What is Sigmar's tax policy? Is it Feudalism? Does he have merchants? Markets? Banks? Education systems for anyone not a mage or warrior? Is there anyone making better guns or artillery? Does he use gunpowder? Art? Steam Tanks and geniuses who can make them? Like, the old world was within a 150 years of having modern artillery systems and airplanes. If Sigmar just shut his gates for a 100 years to build not-space marines, he'd have so much more beyond that from the Empire's level of tech. If this is all covered somewhere, can you let me know where I can read about it?
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 15:10
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:The lore is where the real meat and potatoes are at for this book, I mean there's a whole chapter about how farming is done in the Realm of Fire section that the game uses as its default location.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 16:30
|
|
|
Soulbound Dryad Hive Mind The Sylvaneth are, when in their homeland, bound to each other by the Spirit Song of Alarielle, part of Ghyran's web of endless interlocking life. Outside it, they must work alone, apart from their people, but even then, they are dedicated to maintaining the natural cycle and cleansing the land of taint and darkness. Others tend to find them unpredictable and scary, because they lack the material conerns of most mortal races. Ther focus is only on nature and protecting it. For many long years, they have been in an endless but losing war against Nurgle, who nearly took Ghyran for his own. When Sigmar's Tempest came, however, Alarielle returned from her seclusion as a war goddess, empowering her fey children and driving Nurgle back. Now, the playing field is much more level. The Sylvaneth see both a horrible, dark burden in becoming Soulbound and an unmatched gift. Every Sylvaneth is grown and tended to serve a specific purpose for their enclave. From their birth, they are adult, and they are aware of what their role must be. Becoming Soulbound sets them free of this definition. They become tied to outsiders and are sent far from their birth-glade. For the first real time, they get to see the beauty of nature outside Ghyran and get a chance to understand the other species of the Mortal Realms. The cost, however, is very high. Normally, the lamentiri of a Sylvaneth is left over in death, to be harvested and returned to the wood so their soul can mingle again with the rest of their people and be reborn in new form. A Soulbound lamentiri cannot do this - the energies of the binding overwhelm it, destroying it when the Sylvaneth dies. They no longer hold the ancestral memory of life, meant to be replanted and regrown. A part of the Spirit Song goes out forever. Only Alarielle can ask a Sylvaneth to become Soulbound. No other god will dare to intrude on her children. She does not ask often, because it breaks her heart to lose a child, and every Soulbound Sylvaneth is lost forever, eventually. Those closest to her sometimes suggest she prefers to tap her human or Aelven worshippers over her Sylvaneth when possible. However, sometimes, she must ask her favorite children. Any Sylvaneth she asks invariably accepts the offer. It's the only real reason they become Soulbound - Alarielle, their beloved mother, asked it of them, and they accepted. The Everqueen is loved above all by her children, and the Sylvaneth never question it when one of their own becomes Soulbound. They know why, and Soulbound Sylvaneth are treated reverentially by their fellows, as are any Soulbound that travel with them - a rare honor.  The Branchwych is a Sylvaneth mystic, a spirit chosen for the sacred role of overseeing death and new life. They guard the soulpod groves, using their magic to nurture the souls within the plants and harmonzie them with the Spirit Song. They prepare the not-yet-born for their place in an enclave, and they collect the souls of the fallen. With their long greenwood scythes, the Branchwyches harvest the lamentiri of Sylvaneth that fall in battle, bringing them home to plant again, that their souls and memories may sprout in the next generation. By Sylvaneth standards, they are known to be quick-tempered and reckless, a consequence of the stress and grief that they feel for their fellows. Each is made to serve their enclave in continuing the cycle, and so they only ever leave at Alarielle's bidding. She never tells her chosen Branchwyches why she picked them to be Soulbound, but explains to each that their responsibility hasn't changed, just grown: they must guard the cycle of all Sylvaneth, and all the Mortal Realms. Their potent life magic is very useful, and other Sylvaneth treat the Branchwyches with reverence and loyalty, obeying them almost without question. They do, however, tend to be standoffish of their comrades, because they know all things die, and they also know that once their love is given, it is not something they can hold back. A Branchwych who decides she likes her comrades will help them in anything they need. Branchwyches begin with Body 2, Mind 4, Soul 2, and must be Sylvaneth. Their Core Skill is Channelling, and their Core Talents are Spellcasting (Jade) and Unbind. They also get two of Animal Friend, Loyal Companion (Bittergrub) (you get a pet centipede-worm-thing that eats dead bodies and shits plant growth magic), Medic, Weapon Weave (you can conjure weapons or holy symbols out of plants easily; RAW it even works on guns, which I'm not sure is intended but is definitely how I'm running it, and you can use downtime to magically enhance them further), or Witch-Sight. They begin play with a greenwood scythe (effectively a Greatscythe), a fragment of Ghyran cyclestone and 310D of Aqua Ghyranis.  The Kurnoth Hunter is an elite warrior of Alarielle, grown to hunt down those that threaten nature. They carry excellent (if wooden) wepaons and have the talent to move through any land in silence and speed. They are immense creatures, sometimes over ten feet tall and coated in hard bark. Each is a patient hunter, cunning and ready to wait as long as they must to ensure a successful mission. They are the Sylvaneth most often seen in enemy lands, away from their enclaves, for neither distance nor challenge can stop them - the hunt is their sacred duty. Each contains within them a fragment of the fury of Kurnoth, the hunter god that serves Alarielle. They worship him alongside their mother, which other Sylvaneth find weird and offputting, especially because the Kurnoth are, by Sylvaneth standards, alarmingly monofocused. The Free Spirits of Alarielle tend to be capricious and changeable, yet the Kurnoth are stoic, calm and fatalistic in most cases, cautious and caluclated in a way foreign to other Sylvaneth. The Kurnoth Hunters are the most frequent Sylvaneth to be tapped by Alarielle for the Soulbinding. They are accustomed to travel and more familiar with the dangers of the outside world than others of their people, as well as more adaptable than most. For the Kurnoth, it's not such a different life. Their hunt continues, but now with new allies and further destinations, plus greater challenges and glory. Still, they tend to be very changed by their comrades, exposed to ideas and feelings that would never have happened to them alone. Kurnoth beggin with Body 4, Mind 3, Soul 1, and must be Sylvaneth. Their Core Skill is either Ballistic Skill or Weapon Skill, and their Core Talent is Ancestral Memories, which allows them to, after any Rest, increase either Training or Focus in any skill they already have by 1 until their next Rest. They also get two of Animal Friend, Bulwark, Hail of Doom (you can use a bow to make an area attack on all enemies in one spot rather than attacking a single target), Hunter, or Loyal Companion (Quiverling) (which is a pet plant thingy that hands out free ammo and is helpful generally). They begin with a Greatbow, either a Greatsword or a Greatscythe, and 280D of Aqua Ghyranis.  The Tree-Revenant Waypiper is a foot soldier, a guardian of the Sylvaneth enclaves. They are the Sylvaneth army, serious and quiet outside of battle. They follow strange customs of the wood and sap, honoring both Alarielle and their own past lives. Each is descended from a long line of warriors that bore the same soul, their skills blending together and shaping the fighting style and personality of the Tree-Revenant. Their ancestral memories provide them with strategies and tactics for nearly any situation, assuring them that they have won such a battle before, hundreds of times. Their lineage is held to go all the way back to the divine Protectors of the Age of Myth, which the Tree-Revenants believe they resemble and attempt to honor through their customs and bravery. They may use their waypipes to travel the spirit paths of the wyldwood, moving unseen through plant life. When they become Soulbound, it is a time to mourn. A Soulbound Tree-Revenant is the end of their line, their martial lineage forever after lost to the soulpods. It is an inevitable and final death, but most that become Soulbound accept their eventual fate. For them, the Everqueen's request is essentially an order, and the temptation of true free will is often enough to make it a pleasant, if mortal, life, an escape from painful memories of past existences. Others simply accept that in being Soulbound, they are doing the bravest and most selfless thing they can to protect their homelands, and thus no price can be too high. Tree-Revenants begin with Body 4, Mind 2, Soul 2, and must be Sylvaneth. Their Core Skill is Weapon Skill, and their Core Talent is Martial Memories, which lets them choose each combat between a Melee bonus, a Defence bonus or always acting first in a round (which beats all other fast action powers). They also get three of Acute Sense, Combat Ready, Fearless, Hunter, Observant or Opportunist. They begin with any Common melee weapon, waypipes, and 280D of Aqua Ghyranis. Next time: Talents and Miracles
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 16:44
|
|
|
The setting material is in the latter half of the book, with all the chargen stuff frontloaded, so we'll get to that...soon, it starts in the equipment section.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 16:44
|
|
|
Comstar posted:What is Sigmar's tax policy? Is it Feudalism? Does he have merchants? Markets? Banks? Education systems for anyone not a mage or warrior? Is there anyone making better guns or artillery? Does he use gunpowder? Art? Steam Tanks and geniuses who can make them? These questions are answered in this book.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 17:36
|
|
|
Every single evil wizard in the coming book has actual support, means to magically have armor without needing to spend an action, or one truly dickish surprise that is going to really ruin Vendrick's day. These wizards saw what happened to all the other unsupported wizard boss fights in Hams. They're learning.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 18:34
|
|
|
What really makes necromancers dangerous is their ability to whistle up help on a moment's notice, and keep doing it no matter how many skeletons you smash to pieces.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 18:56
|
|
|
Hedge magic is somewhat better in Warhammer 4e compared to 2e, albeit its not as impressive as the spells the college lores can get it's an absolutely valid choice to stay as a hedgewizard. Meanwhile witch lore sucks poo poo and you have a spend an extremely rare resource to actually get spells from other lores instead of just paying 200 xp to grab one.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 19:02
|
|
|
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Karak Azgal A Hive Of Scum And Villainy While the book starts with Skalf's Hold (I was incorrect, they named the old hold Karak Azgal to commemorate its retaking, and just call the second hold they built next to it Skalf's Hold), your heroes almost certainly arrive in Deadgate first, so we'll start with there. The two urban areas near the dungeon are actually quite well covered, though they're more collections of plot hooks than actual adventures in and of themselves. When the dwarfs realized that enough people were coming by to help dig for treasure and clean out Karak Azgal, rather than build a large extension of their hold to house a foreign quarter they just gave them permission to build their own town next to it (taxed by the dwarfs) and then washed their hands. Deadgate has no official police designed to keep the peace; the dwarfs send Lawbringers from the hold out to make sure people aren't stealing cultural artifacts without selling them back to the dwarfs, collect taxes, check licenses, and close off illegal entrances to the ruins. They are not there to break up fights or enforce the law. This naturally means Deadgate has become a hub of illegal smuggling of dwarf artifacts. Normally, a licensed adventurer is supposed to submit to search and hand over items of especial cultural value or things like magic items, especially excellent gemstones, gromril armor bits or weapons, etc. They also pay tax on whatever else they acquired. They don't, critically, pay any kind of finder's fee for the items of real value. They just expect you to give it to them without complaint because 'it's theirs' and they're letting you keep 85% (70%, if you're an elf) of whatever else you brought out so you should be grateful. While paying a licensing fee to even risk your life fighting for them. They do this while not bothering to actually police Deadgate properly. This naturally means Deadgate is full of the kinds of criminal networks that happily find illegal entrances to the old hold, steal a ton of valuable dwarf stuff, and never let the dwarfs notice. Their greed and their neglect basically mean priceless treasures will continually be lost, all because they're trying too hard to only focus on the priceless treasures. It's a very dwarf sort of stupid. Also our heroes have a Shadow Mage who has magic that hides the value of items. So you know. It doesn't even let the dwarven inspector get a WP save to avoid it. As soon as our heroes realize there's absolutely no payment for bringing out things like magic items, they're going to be Shadow Magicking them and stealing them (with the intent of honorably returning them once they're done using them to save the drat hold, or at least Gilbert intends to) because what the hell else would you do? Considering how much page space is devoted to trying to find ways around the taxes, this is probably intentional. Anyway, Deadgate is mostly full of crime and other mercenaries and adventurers. It's as rough and fast as you'd expect a settlement full of people bringing gold and gems up out of an old ruin to be; there's lots of cash, lots of armed people, few police, and lots of services catering to people who might be dead very soon and who'd like to have a good time first. There's a fighting pit, the Kislevite mob owns a casino, there's a bunch of drinking holes and supply shops for adventurers (who sell at notable markups because what's someone going to do, walk all the way back across the Badlands to get a better price?). The local Ranaldans are a big deal, but they're one of the cults of the thief God that are simply that: Thieves. They're not revolutionaries or anarchists, they're really just criminals here. Which is kind of the Ranaldan equivalent of one of those crazy Sigmarite cults that sets people on fire all the time; technically within the religion, but certainly iffy. They simply operate as another organized crime syndicate and don't take kindly to people who don't pay the tenth coin to Ranald while operating in their turf. Anya will probably have some problems with them. There's also a tavern run by a Halfling targeteer who is so good that he invented 'do stupid poo poo while throwing darts', which he claims is an old moot game. While his place doesn't have the fights and thieves of some of the other taverns, it does have the chance that someone trying to throw darts while being bounced up and down by a sheet dings one of the PCs in the head for Damage 1 occasionally. The local fighting pit has a champion who wins too much, and the old dwarf really is that good; the guy could go toe to toe with Sif. Ulrike really couldn't handle him and she's their best fighter, not that she's likely to get involved in pointless pit fighting. There's an excellent weapon shop run by a former Norse champion, who isn't quite as good as Sif but he's pretty drat good and he's a great blacksmith now that he's retired. A master of weapon-making in the way only a man who knows how to use everything he's making can be. There's a priest of Morr with a dark backstory and a terrible secret who runs an assassination ring. There's even an enterprising dwarf who purchased a wall and claims it's an 'old tradition' for people to pay to get runic inscriptions of their names made before they go down into the dungeons. You know, for luck, appease the old Ancestors and bless their journeys. He's even quite honest, and really does put a proper Khazalid inscription to you on the wall, adding extra monikors like 'Ulrike the Furious' or 'Gilbert the Bold' for some flourish; no 'peanut sauce included' here. It doesn't do anything, but it looks nice, people think it gives them luck, and it only costs 2 crowns. Why not? You can also get involved with the Kislevites and get an illegal access route into the ruins in return for doing them favors, letting you steal anything they didn't want when you leave the dungeon. What could possibly go wrong with cheating dwarfs on the side of the not-Russian mob? Deadgate is simple, but it's enough for what it's trying to be. The juicy plot hooks are actually over in Skalf's hold, but you've got your supply shops, your colorful drinking establishments, your possibilities of subplots with thieves and assassins and other adventuring companies, and it's definitely enough to give you a nice intro to the adventure or give players a couple breaks from dungeon delving for other kinds of stories while you're in town. Next Time: The Heroes in Deadgate
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:Doesn't help that a lot of the expansion has also only happened in fiction outside of the game itself, an area most people don't look. Which is a shame because there's been a slew of good AoS books for the past couple of years that has covered a lot of on the ground aspects and not to mention given an interesting insight into how Chaos works as well. (Seriously, read Scourge of Fate, it's fantastic.) GW's fiction books were consistently diarrhea dogshit for so long that a lot of people are never going to look at them again. They know this, and they should know better than to put significant worldbuilding exclusively in them.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 20:00
|
|
|
Soulbound Miraculous Talents The skil llist is pretty simple, and while each skill has an associated attribute it most commonly rolls, that's not hard-locked. A player or the GM might suggest a different attribute instead, and that's fine and encouraged. You can usually roll skills untrained without any penalty, you just don't get Training or Focus to help you out. The GM may, in some cases, optionally rule that an untrained character can't attempt certain tests, usually related to highly specialised knowledge; alternatively, let 'em roll anyway and have them tell you a story about why they know that stuff. Arcana (Mind): Your knowledge of magic, magical artefacts, realmgates, living spells and mystic energies. Also covers daemonic lore. Athletics (Body): Your ability to run, jump, swim and so on. Awareness (Mind): Your ability to perceive the world with your senses and detect hidden stuff or details. Also helps with Initiative. Ballistic Skill (Body): Using any kind of ranged weapon, including siege engines. (Note that Accuracy is determined using Mind, not Body. Whoops. I guess when rolling in combat use whichever makes sense for the situation?) Beast Handling (Soul): Your ability to befriend, calm and command animals, or tend to their wounds or diseases. Useful if you have a pet. Channelling (Mind): Your ability to actually cast spells, which may not be related to your knowledge about magic proper as an art and science. Crafting (Mind): Making poo poo. Any poo poo, usually with some kind of tools and materials. Used in downtime work as well as knowing stuff about making things. Determination (Soul): Your willpower and ability to handle hardship and despair, or to resist magical fear or control. Devotion (Soul): Your faith and ability to call on divine power. Mostly used in Miracle-casting, and may not have any relation to actual knowledge of theology. Dexterity (Body): Your ability at sleight of hand and working with sensitive devices. Also sued for lockpicking. Entertain (Soul): Your ability to amuse folks by vairous means. Fortitude (Body): Your ability to resist deprivation, pain, poison or illness. Guile (Mind): Your ability to convince people to agree with you, lie to them, con them or use rhetorical bullshittery. Intimidation (Soul): Your ability to force your will on others, either via physical threats or subtle hinting. Intuition (Mind): Your ability to sense how people are feeling or tell if something is out of place or wrong. Lore (Mind): Your knowledge of history, legend and stories. All kinds. Medicine (Mind): Your ability to heal others, recognize proper drugs and treat naturally occurring diseases. (You may need magical help to fight Nurgle's best work.) Might (Body): Your ability to lift heavy things, smash walls, or hold up collapsing ceilings long enough for folks to escape. Nature (Mind): Your knowledge of animals and plants and their dangers and uses. Many of them are magical, given the nature of the Mortal Realms, but as long as they aren't entirely warped by Chaos it probably covers them. Reflexes (Body): Your speed at avoiding harm, such as traps, falling rocks or explosions. Also affects Defence and Initiative. Stealth (Body): Your ability to avoid detection. Survival (Mind): Your ability to find food, hunt, track people, predict weather and navigate in the wilds. Theology (Mind): Your knowledge of religion and psiritual practice, both of the Gods of Order and the Dark Gods. Weapon Skill (Body): Hitting stuff in close combat. Any close combat, armed or unarmed. We've seen most of the Talents through the Archetypes, though there's a few none of them cover, such as the ones that make you better at dual-wielding guns or using ranged weapons in melee, or the ones that let you specialize in weapon keywords to get special effects. Also Heavy Hitter, which is the 'I want to punch people' talent - it makes unarmed combat better by removing the Ineffecive trait from your body and replacing it with Crushing, plus increases your damage to be on par with a sword or club. The Spellcasting Talent is also special, in that you can take it multiple times to get extra Lores of Magic. The cost rises each time you do, and you need increasingly high investment in Channelling and Mind to do it, though. Miracles are a special kind of Talent, though. They're learned like any other, at 2 XP per Miracle, but require you to be Blessed. There's a few that all gods (or the Ethersea) can give, plus specialized ones. Most of them cost Mettle to use and/or sustain over time. You regain 1 Mettle per round in combat, which means that it is doable for someone to use or maintain a single Miracle repeatedly without worry, but going over that is quickly going to run you low on Mettle, which also does have other (rather good) uses. The ones anyone can get are: Divine Power: Spend 1 Mettle to attempt to counter a spell being cast. Healing Spirit: You and all nearby alllies heal Toughness based on a Devotion check. Spend 1 Mettle to also add your Soul to the healing. Inspire Zeal: Pick an ally; they get a bonus to Melee and Accuracy until your next turn. Spend 1 Mettle to sustain it an additional turn as a free action when it would normally end. Revitalise: You remove a Condition from someone you can touch, or all Conditions for 1 Mettle. Shield of Faith: As Inspire Zeal, but for Defence. These are all really good, cheap buffs. If you want to, you can just use these to have a Blessed character be a consistent buffer for the party. The main issue is you're only able to maintain one at a time consistently, but there's literally no risk involved to using Miracles. They cannot fail or go wrong once learned. Alarielle grants access to: Balance of Nature: You can reduce a Wound's severity at the cost of taking a Wound or worsening one you already have. Children of Alarielle: You can make an Awareness check to sense all living things nearby and their exact location, and can sustain this round to round for 1 Mettle each round. It explicitly can't detect Undead, Daemons or any other unnatural things that aren't actually alive. Natural Selection: You can temporarily gain Acute Sense, grow claws that can be used to fight or climb, grow gills and webbing to breathe underwater and get a bonus to swimming, gain Night Vision, or gain wings to fly with, sustaining it round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Verdant Growth: You can revitalise tainted lands and grow plants, which you can use to create simple structures like a bridge, ladder or combat cover. This is permanent, but will decay over time if the environment's not great, and is costless (except for, y'know, needing to take an action). Wrath of the Everqueen: You can summon thorny vines for 1 Mettle, which create hazardous terrain and restrain anyone that is near them. You can spend extra Mettle to make them harder to resist, and can sustain them round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Alarielle's miracles are pretty great for support and general combat control, but are lacking in direct attack capabilities. On the other hand, Verdant Growth is going to make you exceptionally popular with the local people, since you can bless crops and cleanse Chaos or Death taint without having to rely on Aqua Ghyranis or the blood of Sigmarite faithful. The Ethersea is not a god, but rather a mysterious power from the see that the Idoneth have learned to tap into. It grants access to: Dash Upon the Rocks: You can summon a tidal wave to knock over foes and push them around, but Idoneth and sea creatures are immune. You can alsp spend Mettle to deal minor damage. Diviner of Truth: You can read someone's soul to learn about their desires, secrets, fears, loves, strength and so on, though repeated use gives a bonus for them to resist. On the other hand, it's costless except for the action to invoke it. Favorable Tides: You can basically use an Ethersea wave to teleport around instead of moving normally. Again, costless, so that's handy, but it takes up an action. Seeker of Souls: You can sense the souls of anyone nearby, and can pick one that you can then track for several hours and who gets a Defence penalty against attacks from the party. This is costless and extremely good, because it's not resistable. Shatter Soul: You can make a Determination check against someone to temporarily reduce their Soul rating and Mettle, if they have any. They can resist, but this is still really good if facing a foe that relies on Soul-based stuff. You can sustain it round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Ethersea miracles are very nice. They are extremely good at combat support and debuffing, plus investigation! Their damage is lacking, but who cares when you've got Seeker of Souls? Grimnir grants access to: Cauterize: As Healing Spirit, but single target and the roll is easier, plus heals slightly more, but you need to touch the target. Magmic Tunneling: You can spend 1 Mettle to melt a tunnel through stone, which you can teleport to the end of if you want, and any allies near you can spend Mettle to teleport with you. You can sustain the tunnel round to round for 1 Mettle per round, and when you stop, it collapses and returns to normal. The book doesn't say what happens to anyone trapped inside, but I'd probably roll minions get fuckin' killed and tougher foes or PCs just have to dig themselves out but are unharmed. Runic Empowerment: You can spend 1 Mettle to buff your own Armor and that of all nearby allies, and can sustain it round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Searing Heat: You can melt any single metal object you touch for 1 Mettle, which will basically instantly destroy non-magical weapons or armor, but in combat takes an attack roll to hit with. You can spend extra Mettle to also deal damage to whoever was holding or wearing the thing. Volcano's Call: You can spend 2 Mettle to turn the ground in an area into lava, which does great damage to any non-flying creature in that area, and can sustain round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Grimnir miracles, basically, are really good combat tricks, but less good at buffing and debuffing. Cauterize is, IMO, not super great. You'll heal a decent amount more than with Healing Spirit, sure, but it's single-target. Runic Empowerment's a better trick, especially for Fyreslayer or Sylvaneth party members who can't use normal armor. Volcano's Call is very good, but also very expensive, Mettle-wise. Khaine (or Morathi, I guess) grants access to: Blood Binding: You can control someone's blood, inflicting one of Charmed, Frightened or Restrained depending on what you do with it, though they can resist. It only lasts a few rounds, but it's free, and inflicting Conditions is pretty good. (It doesn't, technically, say it doesn't work on foes with no blood.) Dance of Doom: You buff an ally's movement speed and grant them extra actions. You can sustain this round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Red Mist: You pull the blood out of a foe, and if they fail to resist you do damage that ignores armor and creates a somewhat obscuring mist of blood until your next turn. You can sustain the mist round to round for 1 Mettle per round, and when you do you can move it around if you want. Again, it doesn't say it doesn't work on stuff without blood. Rune of Khaine: You buff the damage of a Slashing weapon you can touch for a single attack. For 1 Mettle, it gets even more damage bonus. Touch of Death: You pick an enemy and debuff their Defence for several rounds. Costless! Khaine's miracles are either really good (if you rule they work on stuff without blood) or really good but with a glaring weakness (if you don't, which stops them from working on most undead and daemons). Red Mist isn't super high damage, but it ignores armor, which is extremely good, and the buffs and debuffs you can throw around are cheap and very good. Sigmar grants access to: Bolster Faith: You remove Charmed or Frightened from all allies near you and make them immune to it as long as you sustain this. Also, you create stormwinds that force enemies to have to make a check to be able to get near you. You can sustain round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Celestial Strike: You call down lightning onto your weapon, making it cause one-round Stunned on your next hit with it. Free, and Stunned is nasty, but takes up an action and is self-only. God-King's Aspect: You spend 1 Mettle to make yourself look more like Sigmar and debuff a Daemon's Melee, Accuracy and Defence. You can sustain round to round for 1 Mettle per round. Light of Sigmar: You create a burst of holy lasers around yourself for 1 Mettle, doing damage to all nearby enemies. For another Mettle, it ignores Armor. Unburden Thyself: You can make someone in short range have to answer your questions truthfully if they fail to resist - and further, they feel better for having done it and feel good about you, so you get a bonus to all social interactions with them for the rest of the day. Free. Sigmar's got an eclectic mix here. Bolster Faith is decent but not amazing battlefield control; Frightened is relatively common for tougher foes to be able to cause, though Charmed is not, so that's nice. Celestial Strike is limited to self only, which limits its utility a bit, and God-King's Aspect is limited to Daemons...but on the other hand, this game's Daemons are no pushovers, so a focused debuff on them can be very good. Light of Sigmar's expensive, but the damage is pretty good, especially if you go for the extra cost version, though you can't spam that one like the 1-Mettle version. Unburden Thyself is, on the other hand, one of the single best social effects in the game. Seriously. Costless and basically consequence-free. Next time: Equipment
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 20:02
|
|
|
I'm all of a sudden getting the nagging feeling that this is Wrath & Glory but with a lot more effort and possibly even far more play testing put into it. Because I think they're using more or less the same system in its core but as far as I can see the math isn't as wonky as it is with W&G.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 20:15
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Ballistic Skill (Body): Using any kind of ranged weapon, including siege engines. (Note that Accuracy is determined using Mind, not Body. Whoops. I guess when rolling in combat use whichever makes sense for the situation?) Cooked Auto posted:I'm all of a sudden getting the nagging feeling that this is Wrath & Glory but with a lot more effort and possibly even far more play testing put into it. Because I think they're using more or less the same system in its core but as far as I can see the math isn't as wonky as it is with W&G.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 20:29
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:From reading both books while they have a similar core, they are actually pretty different systems. I stand corrected then. Only given the Soulbound mechanics a cursory glance in comparison to the W&G ones.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 20:50
|
|
|
What was wrong with Wrath and Glory, exactly? I always heard it turned out to be kind of a pile.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:02
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:What was wrong with Wrath and Glory, exactly? I always heard it turned out to be kind of a pile. There were some editing, balance, art and layout issues. It had a solid core, but needed work. Luckily Cubicle 7 who inherited the Licence have released a better rebalanced 2e for the game (Though with a fair number of minor errors in the pdf that need to be cleaned up.) Wrath and Glory 2e looks much better than the original.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:08
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Wrath and Glory 2e looks much better than the original. The editing daemon shows up on 2e as well as the skill points costs are wrong (Going 2, 6, 23, 20 for total costs.) and the suggested skill points math does not match up at all for archetypes even with the correct costs. Then there's also a bunch of other goofs such as Extra Damage Value being abbreviated ED in one sentence and then the next sentence says that Extra Damage Dice is also called ED. And then the weapon damage charts just lists it as damage anyway.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:17
|
|
|
But what was actually wrong with it? Dice math not working? Unbalanced gear? Rocket tag combat? Poorly balanced classes? Bad subsystems?
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:20
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:The editing daemon shows up on 2e as well as the skill points costs are wrong (Going 2, 6, 23, 20 for total costs.) and the suggested skill points math does not match up at all for archetypes even with the correct costs. Yeah I mentioned that, lots of little errors in the PDF that need to be cleaned up.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:22
|
|
|
Can't actually say for W&G1e because the game got released and then apparently got a 2.0 update before simply disappearing and Ulysses games lost the rights for it.MonsterEnvy posted:Yeah I mentioned that, lots of little errors in the PDF that need to be cleaned up. Ah, yeah I missed that.  At least we're getting a FAQ this month.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:23
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Karak Azgal Is the party still fairly flush? If so, perhaps they could hire the Dwarf champion as backup - though figure they wouldn't be able to keep nearly as much stuff if they did because Dwarf (unless he doesn't give much of poo poo about that and thinks the other Dwarfs are being "Dwarvenly stupid." Does the rest of the group aside from Anya know Karl's backstory now? Where is Gilbert's fief in relation to Mousillon? I note that the party seems to be making some fairly useful, powerful friends. Meanwhile, consider that with his relationship to the Thousand Thrones group, Karl kind of has the ability to call the "extra characters" version of the nuclear strike if necessary. I guess my thought is if the Black Knight gets too pissy with Gilbert and the others, Gilbert might end up calling in aid from Ogres, renegade elves, possible friendly Dwarves and just decide to full on annex Mousillon as part of his province.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:28
|
|
|
Gilbert's fief is in Old Mousillon, now Southern Lyonesse. He's basically right on the border, guarding a swamp castle and a village that produces a surfeit of frogs, herbs, and snails. Only Anya knows what the deal is with Karl, he's mostly left things behind by this point. He was just content to be a normal parish priest. Just his friends are off into danger, so here he is. They won't really need any help; they're very ready for what's coming, or rather they will be when they reach the harsher parts. Karak Azgal is about right for their level. I wouldn't send a team that wasn't at 2500+ EXP into it, because it's pretty dang combat heavy even if you are clever about a bunch of the events. What I'll be doing for the updates is more of 'Here's the area and hooks, here's what they inspire', so to speak. Because there's a lot of good hooks in each area, and the actual little dungeon vignettes are genuinely pretty fun despite being a 'classical' dungeon crawl. There's some classic D&D 'everyone in town is a retired adventurer badass' stuff with some of the NPCs, but it kind of makes sense for an adventurer-town in a very dangerous part of the world far from the Empire. The thing with the local pit champion is you aren't really supposed to fight him, his stats are there for if you have a super-badass like Sif. You're meant to (if you deal with his subplot) actually help him get over his alcoholism and depression, which the crime lord who owns the pit is using to keep him chained to the fights, so he can retire. So his subplot is actually about helping an old dwarf veteran get therapy. Almost every NPC has an optional subplot or hook attached to them. It reminds me of the sheer number of 'this person needs help with X/Y or could be stopped if you do Z' in Realm of the Ice Queen's city writeups. E: An awful lot of the travelogue was referencing the other reviews and books; Kinear is the villainous Chaos Cultists professor in Old World Bestiary, Li Na and Renata were from the Chronicle of Pferdekrieg in the Renegade Crowns writeup, Treewakka was an orc that, on seeing a vampire come at him with a tree in one of my GM's games, looked to his aide and told him 'GET ME TREE' so he could have a tree fight, the elf ambassador was Princess Janiel the Stout of Lothern who is a recurring NPC in my own games, and the ogres were just because ogres are cool and the adventure book suggests some kind of adventure or encounter with them en-route. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:12 on May 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 21:45
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Gilbert's fief is in Old Mousillon, now Southern Lyonesse. He's basically right on the border, guarding a swamp castle and a village that produces a surfeit of frogs, herbs, and snails. Only Anya knows what the deal is with Karl, he's mostly left things behind by this point. He was just content to be a normal parish priest. Just his friends are off into danger, so here he is. I get all that. I'm looking forward to Karl probably trying to help the Pit Dwarf, likely succeeding, the crime lord coming after him for it and the Pit Dwarf retiring to Gilbert's fief after beating the crime lord to death with his own spine (the crime lord's spine). I really thinking in terms of after the Karak Asgul stuff. Figure the Black Knight will finally realize who (completely by accident) screwed up his plans those five years back and launch some vengeance raid against Gilbert's fief. That will probably kill quite a few peasants and others, which will infuriate the group and make them fugitives from the Black Knight. And then, reluctantly, in order to save innocent lives, Karl will call for help from the Thousand Thrones. And the poo poo-hammer of Shallya will drop on the Black Knight. Plus the other folks the PCs have befriended just by being decent to them will come to lend a hand. The ogres, the elf ambassador, a few mercenary fighting groups from the Empire. Any Dwarves the group befriends in Karak Asgul. Sif with a poo poo-ton of Norsicans. And presumably right before Gilbert kills tge poo poo out of him, the Black Knight will realize that he hosed up. And he hosed up bad. It would also not surprise me in the slightest to learn that over time, Vendrick has been training the peasants of Gilbert's fief in the art of the Longbow and basically recreating the English archers that King Edward III used to butcher the gently caress out of the French knights at the battle of Crécy.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 22:55
|
|
|
How Tough is the old dwarf? Gotrek Tough?
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 23:03
|
|
|
Guessing strength in the 80s, WS as well with multiple attacks that will just obliterate anyone in melee with them.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 23:04
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:It's obvious that the development for AoS was insanely rushed and incomplete and that constant hearsay of a lot of 1.0 information that is now more or less thrown out the window (include the maps, good lord those maps) 
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 23:19
|
|
|
ChaseSP posted:Guessing strength in the 80s, WS as well with multiple attacks that will just obliterate anyone in melee with them. WS 80, SB 6, TB 7, 3 Attacks, basically every melee talent, Dodge+20, Agi 55, 22 Wounds, and Street Fighter so he gets +10 WS and +1 damage in unarmed combat, and the bouts are unarmed. He'd be on even odds with Sif at the end of the Thousand Thrones. Dude is like a blender with his fists. E: I'd legit say he's got good odds against Chaos Knights unarmed as long as he's got some knuckle dusters so they don't double Armor. Which would be hilarious, this 4 foot tall blur just punching a Chaos Knight in the dick repeatedly until the behemoth collapses. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 23:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 01:57 |
|
|
Night10194 posted:WS 80, SB 6, TB 7, 3 Attacks, basically every melee talent, Dodge+20, Agi 55, 22 Wounds, and Street Fighter so he gets +10 WS and +1 damage in unarmed combat, and the bouts are unarmed. He'd be on even odds with Sif at the end of the Thousand Thrones. Dude is like a blender with his fists. Dude sounds like a hero from the table top, holy poo poo those stats!
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2020 23:26
|
|