Hyrgulf's page

For those that were asking about the game itself, it's a table top game for 1 to 6 (I think) players.

I've primarily played it solo, and enjoy it quite a bit.

It has a heavy story narrative, where you and the other players control a settlement, and over time upgrade it, and the settlers to try to survive in the world.

The short version is, it mixes monster hunter/Punchout! style boss mechanics, settlement management, and character/gear building mechanics, over a 20 turn campaign.

There's 3 main parts:

1. Monster showdown - 4 settlers (or 6 with variant rules) against 1 boss (sometimes more in future planned expansions). This is the tactical mini fighting part of the game. The boss monster is controlled by an AI deck, which specifies what the monsters actions will be. This varies in most fights, as you usually randomly add cards. There are also cards that specify what happens when you miss, hit or crit hit. I really enjoy this part, and scratches a similar itch that pathfinder does for me when using mini's. The AI decks are a really neat way to control fight mechanics, and to apply some narrative to the actual encounter. It's given me quite a bit of idea's on how to GM encounters in Pathfinder as well to vary how creatures fight the party.

If you beat the monster, you receive various item cards that can later be used to craft gear or other things.

By far my favorite part of the campaign.

2. Settlement Phase - this is where you level up/gear the settlers, build new options that open up new gear or other options for your settlers, have some events that can impact the game, and manage all of your settlers. Normally settlers will die, so I tend to think of the settlement more as the main character in the game, rather than individual settlers.

This part scratches the optimizer and character builder aspects that I also enjoy in Pathfinder. Lots of possibilities, and choices that need to be made that open up some options, and close off other options.

3. Hunt Phase - This the weakest part in my opinion. It's basically an RNG phase where bad things usually happen to you to weaken you before the monster showdown, and or the monster gets away, and you need to wait a turn before you go after a monster again.

As other's have pointed out, this game definitely has mature content (no rape however!), the mini's can be a pain to assemble, although the armor kits that come with the core game have great bit's that I've been able to add to my pathfinder mini's (great weapon selection, and other things like a lute, harp etc...). For some of the monster's where I'm not a huge fan of the mini, I'll substitute another mini, and not worry about the original. The pin up's are not part of the game itself. Settler representations are ale pretty tasteful, some of the add-on monsters do get more graphic and extreme.

This link will do a much better job of analyzing and discussing some of the questionable themes that have been discussed earlier in this thread than I can:
https://www.reddit.com/r/KingdomDeath/comments/4hwa6c/so_apparently_kingdom _death_is_creepy/d2trqb9/

i.e. In the APG a barbarian can gain the rage powers from the Beast totem tree, or in Unchained there is Abyssal blood etc.

These give "two primary claw attacks of 1d6 damage". My character uses a one handed hammer and a shield. Can he use both weapon attacks and the primary natural attacks?

Natural attacks can be combined with weapon attacks, but there are some restrictions.

First, if doing a standard action attack you can only chose one type of attack. That is at your highest bab plus modifiers for that specific attack and damage (some natural attacks like bite gets 1.5 strength if used as the sole attack)

Second full attacks use your weapon attack iteratives ( so full bab for first, then bab -5 for second etc, two weapon fighting applies as normal if applicable) and then natural attacks are performed as secondary natural attacks (so -5 or -2 if you have multiattack feat, check with your gm, as this is a monster feat if you can use, in PFS you cannot, and strength damage is 1/2)

Third, you cannot use the same "hand" for two attacks. I.e., if using a claw attack it uses a hand, so does your hammer attack, so,you can't have both. You can use the other hand for 1 claw but not both, or a bite with your weapon. Unarmed attacks don't have to be with a "hand" so you can do full iterative unarmed strikes and 2 claw attacks as secondary attacks for example.

In your specific example, however you have 1 hand being used by your shield. Which will prevent the attack from the claw in that hand (or you can use a buckler, but there is a penalty when attacking with the "hand" that the buckler is on. In the other hand, you have a weapon and claw. You can attack with the hammer, but then you will not be able to attack in the same round with the claw as a full attack. There will be table variance if you can or cannot attack with the claw instead of the hammer instead. (I have had gm's say you need to drop the weapon, other gm's say if your other hand is free, you can attack with the free claw first, then pass the hammer to that hand as a free action, and now attack with the now empty hand with the claw, and other gm's that say you can attack with either the weapon or claw without passing it, but only 1.

If you are looking to use both natural attacks and weapon attacks, I would suggest taking either fiend totem for a gore attack, or a bite attack if you want to still be able to use the hammer and shield with a full attack.

If you're in a home campaign, talk to your GM, he/she might allow you to house rule this. In PFS you can't get both your claws and a weapon attack.

j b 200 and The Goat Lord and Zhangar have some good general advice for making encounters more difficult and more interesting.

Here are a few others

1. To expand on full attacks, remember, those should be difficult to set up. Don't have all of your enemies stringed together separated by 5 foot steps or have them run up to the PC allowing her to 1 shot it on her next turn. Make the PC take 1 round getting into range (and possibly taking an AoO, and a possible full rnd attack from the monster), before the PC gets to full round attack and possibly/probably kills the monster. After having to do that a few times, the PC is going to need some healing.

Give the monsters more reach than the PC has, or use combat maneuvers to knock the PC out of full attack range after they have positioned themselves to get a full attack.

if the PC has pounce (or something similar), use uneven terrain, or allow the monster/NPC to position itself so it's not in a charge lane.

If the PC has ranged attacks, put up things that give concealment like obscuring mist, or similar, forcing the PC to re-position, take miss chances, or have someone use an action getting rid of the concealment if possible.

2. Utilize room shapes to the Monsters advantage. Put minions in a skinny corridor, with a 90 degree angle, allowing the Big bad to buff them, while they block the PC's from getting to the big bad.

3. Debuff the PC's: drain ability scores, saves, etc; apply negative statuses (like sickened, nauseated, slow etc...)

In my most recent game, my 5 attack per round hasted natural weapons barbarian was grappled, and hit with a relatively high DC fort save, when failed made me nauseated. For the next 3 rounds until I made the save, I was pretty much out of the fight, while the monster slowly knocked down my hit points. When I made the save to end the effect, the monster died. So instead of 1 shotting it, it took 4 rounds before I "1 shotted it".

4. divide the party, when the high damage, low AC character get's the highest initiative, and jumps out way in front of the rest of the party to get into melee range, throw up a wall of stone between him, and the rest. That'll be the last time he does that.

Basically, for the memorable fights, make sure the bad guys use tactics as well as the PC's will. Remember, they only have this one encounter, and probably only a few rounds during this encounter, so they don't need to conserve their resources (which the PC's likely do, or have been doing because they shouldn't always be fighting only 1 encounter per rest period). Figure out 2 or 3 good tactics when you design, or read over the encounter, and note them down. Then pick the most appropriate one at the time of the fight.

Also, remember, a high damage dealing PC/Monster should have a decent chance to kill an equal CR/Level adversary in 1 round. Take a 1st level barbarian NPC Power Attacking with a 2 handed weapon. They might not always hit, but when they do, they'll pretty much one shot any d8 or lower class on minimum damage.

Just remember, not to make every encounter a possible party wipe. Sometimes the PC's should cut through the bads like butter. But sometimes there should be a bit more to the fight. But at the end of the day, the PC's are meant to win. (Or it should be obvious to them, that they are not meant to win, and think of surrendering, running away, or another course of action than trying to kill the obstacle).

I just need to add this side question: Is it really worth focusing on natrual attacks when you don't have access to them at all times? This goes for everyone without constant natrual attacks (Alchemists, Barbarians, Bloodragers, etc). It just seems to me that it eats so much of the build while it's only doable for a few encounters/day and the rest of the time you're going to be sub-par (or won't they?).

You need to manage your rage.

I play a natural weapon 1/2 Orc barb, most of my rage powers are built around the natural attacks, which I really only benefit from when I'm full attacking, and I don't have pounce so that means I need to be next to them or able to 5' step to full attack.

So I usually try to only rage when I can full attack, or have another reason to.

Normally I'll wade into battle, and do my first attack with a weapon (I normally use a reach weapon, but I have toothy, so I always have a bite) these get strength X1.5 when used alone.

Then when I am in place to full attack I rage, and have 4 natural weapons with normal strength bonus.

If it's not the BBEG, I'll often kill it in 1 to 2 rounds. At level appropriate monsters, 1/2 of my attacks hit on average. Then if I can 5' step on to the next opponent. If I can't 5' step I'll decide if it makes sense to drop rage, wait out the fatigue until I'm in position for the next full attack, and then rage, or just keep rage, and get in place.

Sometimes if I want to spell sunder or something else that requires rage that changes the equation.

In the early levels, this allowed me to be able to rage pretty much through the whole day when I had the ability to full attack, at that point, unless I rolled terribly, almost nothing lived through a full attack (cr 3 and below creatures will usually die if 2-4 high dmg attacks hit), and at later levels, I usually have 1/2 of my rage rounds left before we call it a day, and that's usually 4 full encounters.

Here's another one that I've been working on for my home campaign that I'm in:

This is a little less straight forward than a plan 2 handed fighter, but it's not too complex.

The build is a bit complex (But I've got the tricky parts listed below), the play style however is pretty straight forward.

The idea is that you'll use a 2 handed reach weapon most of the time, and then improved unarmed strike when enemies are adjacent to you. And as the character gains levels, take dazzling display and shatter defense to make enemies shaken and flat footed to apply precision damage, and sap adept and sap master for unarmed strikes to make that precision damage even more potent.

Race: Human (for the bonus feat).

Suggested stats
Str 19 (+2 racial)
Dex 12 (feel free to swap with con bonus, particularly if you somehow get combat reflexes)
Con 14
Int 10 (you can dump this if you want to pump something else up)
Wis 10
Cha 10

Favored class slayer, take 1/6 slayer feat for the first 6 slayer levels (after that switch to hit point or skill point)

traits: Bully (+1 intimidate) and whatever else. maybe indomitable faith.

For skills, max intimidate,

1. Brawler (1): Snakebiter Striker Archetype (1d6 sneak) - weapon focus (unarmed strike), Dazzling Display (unarmed strike)
2. Slayer (1)
3. Slayer (2)- slayer talent - ranger combat style (twf); Intimidating Prowess
4. Slayer (3) - +1 to str.
5. Slayer (4) - slayer talent (whatever you want); sap adept.
6. Slayer (5) -
7. Slayer (6) - slayer talent - combat trick (sap master); slayer talent - ranger combat style (imp twf); shatter defense.
8. Slayer (7) - +1 to str

With this play style, you have full bab, Studied target, 3d6 sneak (+6 damage and +6d6 sneak when non-lethal attacking flat footed opponents), a way to consistently make opponents flat footed. 2 iterative attacks (if attacking 2 handed, or mixing 1 2 handed attack, and 1 unarmed attacks) or 4 attacks if TWF unarmed.

Study 2 targets as a swift action, Perform Dazzling display as full round action, wait for someone to attack you (get AoO when they pass through your reach threatened square), then unleash with with TWF non-lethal unarmed attacks, first attack to shatter defenses, then apply sap master for remaining attacks, and attacks next turn. and remember unarmed attacks provide full strength bonus to all attacks because your a brawler).

Or make a iterative attacks (not using TWF) with improved unarmed for adjacent creatures, or your polearm for those in reach (if you don't focus all of your damage on 1 creature, or you know you'll probably kill something with the first attack).

Even before the Shatter defenses and Sap master feats come online, you have good flexibility and damage potential, and a whole bunch of skills to play with.

Hobbits - plagarism
Balrogs - plagarism
Ents - plagarism

Halflings - still plagarism, Halfling was used by Tolkien to describe Hobbits, but he had not Trademarked that word like Hobbit (yes there are many variants that differ greatly, but the standard halfling is pretty much word for word based on Tolkien's Hobbits, and that has been acknolwedged, and accepted. TSR didn't even take the effort to come up with a new name to describe them like they did with Treants, but just used a differnet name that Tolkien used to describe them in his stories.

Treants - Ents, added a few letters...

Cthulhu Mythology - from the dieties and Demi Gods book

Warcarft & StarCraft - copying

Those are ones that jump out at me off the top of my head. I'm sure there's many other examples, from TSR, and from other companies. Let's face it, the whole RPG industry is founded on borrowing idea's from others and building on that some of them do come under the pure plagarism flag (I knew what a Balrog was from the Monster Manual long before I ever read Tolkien.

So, if Sean feels so strong about copying, and reusing ideas, I hope he has never used standard halflings in any of his work (I guess, he's not had too much of a problem working for companies that have been okay with plargarizing, even if he never personally did it himself).

Now, maybey Hasbro will send a C&D letter to the maker of these mini's,
(and that's well within their right), and maybe they won't. And maybe Andrew is in the legal right to make these mini's based on the ideas of TSR/WoTC/Hasbro (I don't know the legal implications all that well).

The more important question in my opinion in deciding if it's moral or ethical (not if it's legal), is if the RPG industry, and those of us that benefit from it, is stronger or weaker because of it?