Udarra

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Scarab Sages

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There is also Savage Worlds with the Rippers world setting

Its literally this, you can even lighten it up league of extrodinary gentleman style

Scarab Sages

Does it work?

Scarab Sages

Monster Island (RQ6/The Design Mechanism)
The Book of Quests (RQ6/The Design Mechanism)
RuneQuest 6 Collectors Edition (RQ6/The Design Mechanism)
Hero Kids (Hero Forge Games) My 6 and 8 year olds *love* this game
Interface Zero 2.0 (Cyberpunk for SavageWorlds)

Scarab Sages

Just started reading the Mongoliad Series

Book 1 was awesome

Book 2 is a bit different

Scarab Sages

Depends on the cartographers skill and experience as well as what tools they use, how many unique elements you want and the size/amount of time needed, level of detail

I've heard quotes from the $50-60 range from new mappers to almost $1000 for some of the artists/professionals doing world scale maps

It varies

Scarab Sages

I would Recommend Star Frontiers
Star Frontiers
Old school sci fi, who doesnt want to be a Flying monkey?

And.. its Free legal PDF!

PS forgot to mention the gamma world conversions for the old school post apoc feeling

Scarab Sages

you can use google drive.. or MS sky drive
youre essentially asking for free space to upload your stuff

Scarab Sages

Brian E. Harris wrote:
Kthulhu wrote:
Brian E. Harris doesn't exactly seem rational on the subject, since in another thread he's accusing the Megaversal system (first used in the early 80s) of being a ripoff of the d20 system.

Uhhh, no.

I said it SEEMED to be a ripoff of D&D mechanics - not d20.

There's a big difference there, considering that the system known as d20 didn't exist until D&D 3E, and Palladium was around longer than that.

I found it to be a similar setup, and that's what I said. But, hey, you know, irrational, woo.

I've always considered Palladium as rip off/mash up of D&D with a modified runequest skill set.

Scarab Sages

Runequest 6th Edition....
made for fantasy... Magic is well done
Mysticism/Wuxia elements. very nice
Guns and lightsabers soon to be released as a free update!
www.thedesignmechanism.com

Scarab Sages

I am currently reading RQ6... The book is pretty awesome
well, Oher than size being a stat, same as strength or intelligence..
but completely different than size used for monsters/creatures

Scarab Sages

Coming soon
Super Kiss Cover
EW quotes writer Geoff Johns: "This is the new status quo"

Scarab Sages

4 people marked this as a favorite.

The 6 attribute response to rain

Strength: Shrug it off
Dexterity: Dodging Raindrops
Constuition: Resisting the Cold Virus
Intelligence: Its Raining
Wisdom: Lets go Inside
Charisma: Singin' in the Rain

Scarab Sages

Game Depot is right off southern and McClintok
Pretty central, Imperial Outpost is off 51 ave and Thunderbird

Both are great stores

Scarab Sages

Believe it or not, I managed to miss the entire runequest family of games over the past 30 years. Heard of them, but never really bothered to find them or play them.

I went from D&D into Palladium, and from there into rolemaster, shadowrun, traveller etc.

I only recently picked up BRP, and from there Stormbringer and 4th ed Pendragon at a yard sale, Then picked up runequest 6th, and overall, it seems incredibly well made.

But size as a characteristic seems really limiting/restircitve

A stat/characteristic should always be relevant, strength should do fine for damage bonus, but you need to consider size as well?

I did find that creatures can use a different weight chart, since its hard to make a blue while fit, or an elephant etc.

It seems to be a hold over that they have failed to revise out.. through 6 editions

Scarab Sages

My understanding is the Elven weapons grant a +1 bonus, only elf get this bonus (maybe half elf), all other users its just a normal non bonused weapon

Scarab Sages

I've been slowly reading through the book and here are a few things Ive learned

Characteristics:
Strength, Constituition, Dexterity, Power, Charasima, Intelligence, and Size
You can roll or there is a point assign option
(I'm having a really hard time accepting size as a stat, human range is 8-18, a dragon size is 50, which means is about 320cm (13' tall, weighing about 1000 lbs which seems almost small for a dragon, there may be some monster size ive not gotten to yet tho )

Game is skill based using percentile roll under mechanic
22 general skills, a wide range of suggested professional skills

Character creation is basically

Roll/Pick stats

Calculate derived attributes, (HP, attack points, strike ranks, magic points)

Determine baseline for general skills (Usually 2 stats added together)

Pick a culture (Barbarian, Civilized, Nomadic or Primative)
Option to pick 3 new professional skills, add 100 points between them and general skills, pick your cultural Passions

Background (big chart)

Pick a career, generally your culture determines which careers are open to you, careers grant access to additional professional skills, then get another 100 skill points to divvy up between skills, determine if your career grants access to magic, also decide if you want to join a cult/brotherhood

Pick an age, how old you are determines your final skill allotment, and how much your skills can improve

Get your gear and get playing

There are no classes, there are no levels, your choices determine what skills you have, and which you are best at, its entirely possible to be terrible at all skills, or to start with a skill or 2 close to 70 or 80...

Magic isnt a section Ive read yet... but character creation seems interesting
That size is a stat is really.. really bugging me tho

Scarab Sages

It's basically the same authors, who have expanded and clarified some of the rules.

Its Fairly large, weighing in at 450+ pages, but in theory its a complete book

Scarab Sages

No character plan survives first contact with the campaign

Scarab Sages

no problem!

I always considered 25-50% of a monsters wealth suitable to be used to buy gear, consumables, hire retainers etc

Otherwise you end up with some really absurd situations like

Wow, a potion of cure serious wounds.. good thing he kept that in a locked safe, where it was useless...

Of course encounters will often have a given item being deployed against the players... +1,+2 swords.. happens all the time in my game. One of the classic rules of D&D has always been, be careful when you ask for magic items, your next enemy may be wielding it against you. This is both normal and expected.

potions.. scrolls.. wands.. staves.. armor.. weapons...

I've had all creatures capable of using items use them, on occasion. I'm not saying deck the creatures equipment to counter a specific party layout, but CR is only a guide line, wealth, another guideline
xp, for a specific encounter.. again.. a guideline

A dragon that ambushes you on prepared ground and loses.. one xp level
Same dragon you lure into a cunning trap.. different xp level
Sleeping dragon ganked by an avalanche.. still another xp level

Your Pathfinder my vary

I had an Orc army, led by a Orc chief, who was possessed by a sword he discovered. The players were hard pressed to out maneuver this orc who was a cunning strategist with multiple layers of contingency plans. Orc chief was level 4.. the sword.. +3 weapon (cursed), far beyond anything the orc should have had. but it made a great plot device.
The final battle, a satisfying conclusion

Everyone had fun and no one made mention of CR, Wealth, or encounter balance because it was fun, and challenging.

My players are smart, resourceful, adaptive, cunning and catch me off guard on multiple occasions. They take notes, have long memories, and rarely take the same tactic twice.

If I ran encounters strictly by CR.. it would be a cakewalk, and more importantly, they wouldn't have nearly as much fun, or have as great a sense of accomplishment

Scarab Sages

Use the stat blocks as written, and all other treasure will be in bales of cotton/hay.. figure 5 sp a bale... at 50 lbs per bale...
60,000 gp
that should be about 3000 tons
the average cart can carry 1 ton (maybe)
so that should take them.. months and or years to move to market :)
this lesson in absurdity brought to you by the thought
if the monster is not allowed to use its wealth..
then why should the players :)

Scarab Sages

Classic
BECMI, Red dragon cover...
Solo adventure boils down to 2 words

Rust.. Monster

Scarab Sages

23. Aww man, how long did it take you to make a new character last time?

Scarab Sages

Anyone checked it out yet?

Looks good, but I am only a few chapters into it.

Scarab Sages

Harn/Harnworld is mostly system free
Harnmaster is the rules set
but Harn is fairly pricy

Scarab Sages

Rolemaster was my primary system for the better part of 15 years
I have complete sets of RM classic, RMSS and RMFRP on my shelves
I even have Spacemaster, Spacemaster Privateers, and The initial HARP books.
Left the system after the edition warriors succeeded in bringing back RM2
Been considering Hero 5th, Hero 6th, BRP and Savage worlds as my next main systems

Scarab Sages

I gave a my party a small cat statue, if you pet it and said a command word, it would cast cats grace, lasts 10 rounds
however if you just pet it, it acted like a real cat till you picked it up and put it back in your pocket/stopped interacting with it

Scarab Sages

If you need some cultural ideal, look at
http://www.everyculture.com/
This will help with general cultural ideas unless you're doing a medieval France variant (again)

For mythological motifs.. you'll need
http://www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/thompson/index.htm
Which is great for consistency

For the world itself
http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/
This is for writers so may be of some use to a beginner

Monomyth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
AKA how to design a campaign

Scarab Sages

I've read about half the thread so far so if I recover some ground, forgive me, but I have some thoughts on the role-player vs. Optimizer/Power Gamer/Min-Max debate.
In D&D 3.x onwards, some level of optimization is mandated. Challenge rating specifically states that monsters are built with the expectation of a certain party size with specific levels of gear. If you remove said gear from the party, the encounter level and difficulty changes drastically.
Personally I view Optimizers/Power Gamers/Munchkins/Min-Maxers as varying degrees of the same mentality.
Optimizers are the high school football players. They have some knowledge, and use that to their advantage. They seek to make the most powerful character they can without seeming to blatant or over the top. Role-players can look at the optimizer and think they can get onto the field with them. The optimizer will whine about them being there and not playing the game "right", but the difference in ability isn't so stark as to be detrimental to the party overall. Optimizers tend to like to blame non-optimized party members for TPK's, even though Challenge ratings are not geared to optimized parties, but for a blend of classes and gear ratings.
Power Gamers are like College Football players. They have a strong skill set and advanced knowledge of certain aspects of the game. They make characters that are very focused and skilled in specific areas, expecting other characters to pick their skills around the glaring flaws in their character. This is the fighter that needs a high charisma "Face" in the party etc, if the player is ever isolated/separated from the party; it's very easy to exploit the flaws. Any character creation decision made with the thought, well "such and such class" will handle those situations, is a sign of this mentality. As in real life, when the college football player who coasts through classes on his athletic talent is done with college and meets real life, comedy ensues. Role-players may admire the builds and skill sets, but no one really expects to get onto the same field and compete for long periods.
Min-Maxers/Power Gamers are the Pro-level football players. Their characters are freakish to look at, almost broken in every aspect except those few area's the player chose to excel, and in those areas, they are almost unbeatable or completely broken. No role-player wants to be in a game with one, and in most cases the only way these players find games are with inexperienced GM's or with new groups of players who haven’t heard about them yet.
Overall the primary mentality of these player types (in my experience) is that if you are not seeking to maximize your combat effectiveness, "you're not doing it right". In non combat oriented campaigns with little or no combat, most of these players end up feeling lost/confused or "bored".

Scarab Sages

5. While travelling to a local trade center, the party is approached by a small child foaming at the mouth, he quickly dies as the party gets within 100 yards.

A number of other children in the town are also dying from similar seizures as the party approaches the town. Within an hour much of the town falls sick from terrible cramps.

The local baker is the only adult who actually dies, muttering about the strange flour.

Eyes turn towards the new mill, on the river below the graveyard...

Scarab Sages

Yarr!

Scarab Sages

1. Hero (I am learning to love the game, some day I will actually run it)
2. Rolemaster (RMSS/RMFRP)
3. Pathfinder (Adventure Paths only)
4. Shadowrun 3Ed
5. WEG Star Wars
6. Palladium FRP 1st and 2nd ed
7. Pendragon
8. Traveller (just about all iterations)

Scarab Sages

The sites been up since december 2008
so its stood for over a year....

Scarab Sages

It's the comic book readers mother lode

www.htmlcomics.com

Scarab Sages

See i have a captive audience who generally plays what ever system i wanna experement with

I got them to play Rolemaster, 2, rmss/rmfrp

They have already said they would glady play hero when i want to run it

Its just getting the game to a point where i feel comfortable doing so

I just hate the idea of having to jump to a rulebook for (almost) every rules question

Scarab Sages

Rolemaster RMSS/RMFRP (MERP)
Shadowrun 2nd/3rd (own none of the 4th ed)
BECMI (Loved this as a teenager)
Traveller in its various incarnations
Palladium-FRP/TMNT/Ninijas, Beyond the supernatural (GHOSTBUSTERS!) etc

Honerable Mention: I own like 20+s Hero books (no supers stuff) and the 3 new 6th ed
books, but Ive never RUN the game. The *concept* seems awesome, its just hard to come to grips with

Scarab Sages

Dont forget to...
you know
READ the comic :)

Scarab Sages

Well its the artists stated intention to upgrade to the pathdinder system rather than moving into the 4e or other game system :)

Scarab Sages

So I've been reading the Nahast webcomic
http://nahast.spiderforest.com/

It's an interesting fantasy style comic and here I find they are releasing someing for the Pathfinder game
see
http://nahast.coyotzin.net
Wewt
Cool comic + Cool game = win

Scarab Sages

chibi pit fiend?

Scarab Sages

I just picked up Hero 6e Volume 1 and Volume 2

Now all I need to do is figure out how to play it

Strangely, I find listening to swedish techno makes it easier to understand, and i dont speak swedish

Scarab Sages

Next meeting is this saturday
Food.. new friends
Anyone play pathfinder in AZ?

Scarab Sages

My Amazon order
Not yet shipped
Shipping Estimate: December 14, 2009
ARGH!

(and the PDF isnt up yet)

Scarab Sages

so in theroy
1+ short sword (M) with +9 stacking Flaming (+10 bonus)
10d6 per strike, 198k ?

Scarab Sages

I'm preparing to run the Rise of the Runelords AP. This should cover levels 1 to around 15. We are using pathfinder core rules/books only, with allowances for the playtest classes. My rules on splat books is fairly simple, If I dont personally own the book, its not allowed (And I only own Pathfinder Core books atm).
My group currently has 3 players and we are seeking 1-2 more players to round out the group. We meet every other saturday, from Noon till about 9pm (with dinner break). The game will have a character creation day once we have 4+ players.
Next Scheduled game dates are 12/12/09, 12/26/09, 01/09/10, 01/23/10, 02/06/10. Since real life happens we sometimes have to shift a game date to sunday, but its fairly rare.
I host the game at my house, everyone brings snacks for the group to share, dinner responsibilities are rotated throughout the group. (Everyone looks forward to my wifes insane cooking skills)
I live in maricopa, its about 30 mins from Tempe/Chandler area. We have gamers who come all the way from north phoenix (60-90 mins drive time) They carpool so that car is full for now. We are all in our mid 30's, Employed looking to have some fun, kill some monsters and have fun and eat well.
If you're interested, post here and we can arrange a meeting

Scarab Sages

Using the Pathfinder Core and Bestiary

Ok I'm trying to understand something that most of you probably have already internalized, which is basically how to determine how natural attacks work for creatures.

Now for most characters, its simply subtract 5 from the base attack bonus, if you have a positive number greater than 0, they can take another attack, and you can repeat this proccess until the final number is 0 or less

I have found there are little rule gotcha's scattered about the various texts and its a little confusing.

Pathfinder CORE PG 182
You do not receive additional natural attacks for a high base attack bonus. Instead, you receive additional attack rolls for multiple limb and body parts capable of making the attack (as noted by the race or ability that grants the attacks). If you possess only one natural attack (such as a bite—two claw attacks do not qualify), you add 1–1/2 times your Strength bonus on damage rolls made with that attack. Some natural attacks are denoted as secondary natural attacks, such as tails and wings. Attacks with secondary natural attacks are made using your base attack bonus minus 5. These attacks deal an amount of damage depending on their type, but you only add half your Strength modifier on damage rolls.

Moster Introduction (GRD)
Melee: The creature's melee attacks are listed here, with its attack roll modifier listed after the attack's name followed by the damage in parentheses.

Now if you look at the young red dragon...
BAB is listed as 11
Str is 25 (+7)
Melee bite +17 (2d6+10), 2 claws +17 (1d8+7), 2 wings +12 (1d6+3), tail slap +12 (1d8+10)
Now Bites and claws are Primary attacks, the wings and tailslaps are secondary

So how many bites, claws, wing bashes and tail swipes does a dragon get
1 Primary + 1 Secondary? Does he get them all?

If some sadistic godling damages the sail portion of a dragons wings so he cannot fly, and tosses him into a pit, what kind of blender is he?

Scarab Sages

Just what exactly is a "Gith/Gish" anyways

I see the term, but a forums search wasnt helpful, pulled up a bunch of archive posts

Scarab Sages

Good chance I'll drop in for one of the days at least

Scarab Sages

I haven't played D&D regularly since the AD&D era

I've played a few sessions of the 3.0 version, and managed to completely bypass/ignore the 2.0 and 3.0/3.5 era's.

I'm not overly impressed with 4.0, But I am finding much to like in the pathfinder verisons so far.

But honelsty..
52 attacks?
How is that even remotely possible?

Scarab Sages

ok
Where is it and how does one locate it?
Argh..
Curse my newbieness!

Scarab Sages

Getting a little worried

No pathfinders out in the Maricopa/Casa Grande area?

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