Again, in our PF/MW game we allow any round of .40cal/10mm or more a free Bull Rush attack to knock the target down if it does over 50% of its max damage (this includes any damage that did not penetrate DR).
Rifles & shotgun slugs throughout their range.
Pistols & shotgun shot only in their 1st range increment.
Double-barreled shotguns get a bonus if both barrels fired as one.
(Favorite weapon for 1 MechWarrior, he calls it LuLu.)
Smaller caliber weapons can also knock down, but require multiple hits in the same game round,
2+ hits for 7.0mm-9.9mm,
3+ hits for 5.0mm-7.9mm,
and 4+ hits with anything smaller than 5.0mm.
Amazingly, no one has died since the 2nd game session where they found out that machine-pistols and motorcycles at 150kph were a bad idea.
I think feats such as gunner's stance would reduce or avoid this knockback. Anybody tried leaning into the shot during the driveby?
It was pure suicide, 6 PC's vs 6 NPC's all traveling at 150kph on a dirt road.
PC's with Uzi-clones & NPC's with laser pistols.
NPC's could not shoot through the dust at the PC's, PC's pretty much formed a line abreast in the dust behind the fleeing NPC's.
They charged, putting everything past the redline & everyone blasting full-auto straight ahead.
All the NPC's were hit & failed their drive/ride checks directly in front of the blinded PC's now going about 180kph.
Everybody failed everything, everybody died and made the evening news.
NPC's had stolen a brand new neural helmet belonging to one of the PC's.
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I'm sure passions and opinions are everywhere when you get into how powerful weapons are, but I've always thought the point of games is to deal with something in the abstract. I've seen many of good ideas get tossed aside because too much time was spent searching for "realism."
Perhaps I need to clarify;
Recoil in the game is not a problem.
It only comes into play when using automatic-fire and burst-fire, and it's effect is to decrease the shooter's accuracy.
Recoil for large caliber weapons only comes into play if a character continues firing every round for a number of rounds greater than their CON bonus.
Knock Down is applied only to targets of projectiles, as they are suffering the worst of the weapon's kinetic energy, armored or not.
It just made sense, a character can't just stand there in an EOD suit while someone pumps 10mm slugs into him from 50 meters!
That's why we add the damage that the armor's DR stops, into the Knock Down. Multiple hits in 1 round are added together for a single Knock Down check.
I was worried more about which caliber does what damage. Recoil makes perfect sense. I figured the purpose of an automatic weapon was to throw out a bunch of firepower, decreasing the need for accuracy. I'm not a weapon's expert though.
The Automatic/Burst mode rules I have are basically Vital Strike on any attack made with the weapon in exchange for a To-Hit Penalty...
It also has Light(1d8), Medium(1d10), & Heavy(1d12) firearms. Each uses their own type of Ammo.
Might I recommend looking into Age of Resistance?
It is hard to find the right one but it is wonderful for a Science Fantasy setting.
Especially since it was based on FFX's level of Technology.
The Automatic/Burst mode rules I have are basically Vital Strike on any attack made with the weapon in exchange for a To-Hit Penalty...
Tell me more.
I want to have a prototype class system up within a week if possible. I'll do my best to juggle it with work/school, dorm responsibilities, and the arrival of my desktop and impulse to play my new video games on said desktop (I finally got myself a copy of Skyrim, and I now have every Command and Conquer game because I went and got the Ultimate Edition).
I have covered them on the Metro Thread and I think here.
It allows you to fire off multiple shots with each attack.
So say a Medium Assault Rifle (x4 Crit) on 3-Burst. -2 To-Hit, 3 Bullets used, normal damage 3d10, critical damage 4d10.
I have a couple disjointed thoughts.
First off, the general elven philosophy is that technology is not necessarily bad and that is isn't always wrong to develop parts of the natural world into agricultural or industrial areas, but that this is something that needs to be done very carefully and with a lot of oversight in order to keep what they consider a fair portion of the natural world intact. Essentially, they are proponents of green development and technology.
Secondly, I am starting off with having the campaign setting focus on one country, which is based heavily off of California and Mexico both culturally and geographically, with Hawaii being a possession of this nation. This nation is ruled by a constitutional monarch who happens to be a dragon (the fact that they are ruled by a dragon is publicly known). This dragon has been alive for a long time, and watched the Industrial Revolution when it was just beginning, and watch the Renaissance before that. She finds technological and societal development to be absolutely fascinating, and she puts a ton of her nation's resources into fueling technological development and philosophy.
I've personally never liked Elves as pure nature lovers. It's a kind of hold over mixed bag of merger of Tolkin's take on Nordic Elves and little forest sprites of Britain and else where. In Golarion you find the 'high-ish' elves (the ones that bailed before impact) have an air of "power" about them. Their stuff is naturish because they can spend hundreds of years shaping the world around them and actually live to see the results. Not because they have any great love for the "natural" order. If that were really the case in the D&D/Pathfinder traditions they'd be favoring Druid and Wisdom, not Wizard and Intelligence. Elves are power and time.
Take dog breeding. It is a human endeavor that has taken generations of practiced breeders to specialize the animals. For an Elf this could be their Masters/P.H.D. research to create new breed of dog, just one or two elves plus some undergraduate research assistants.
Look at geological processes. The Mississippi river is beautiful example of an ongoing geological process that causes us short lived humans no end of grief. The Mississippi is a meandering river and it's course is changing over time. In modern times it's been put on the Army Corp of Engineers to keep in place (a goofy notion for an elf who's lived long enough to actually see it change).
Global warming, another example. A venerable elf could possibly remember what the weather was like first hand in 1013, he may even have records. He'd have lived through the Little Ice Age.
It's something to consider how various races longevity impacts a Modern fantasy setting. There would be Elves alive today that fought as basically teens in the American revolutionary war. Just slapping fantasy races into a modernish setting often comes across as a bit hamfisted, unless you do it like Urban Arcana or Shadowrun where all these non-human races being (re)appearing spontaneously.
How heavily based off? I live in California, and it's an odd mix of massive urban centers and vast agricultural "nothingness." For some reason, I would see this as being a place with an above average elven population.
I've been to Hawaii a few times and there is another amazing culture. The people there seem to struggle with holding on to their Culture while dealing with the modern world. Just an opinion / thought.
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For instance, Wizards are magic users with a degree in their field of study, while Witches and Sorcerers have no formal education in magic and as such can't get the really good magic jobs that Wizards can, but probably have more connections with the urban underground (giving them Know Local as class skills).
What is it about wizards that inspires such nauseating fanwankery?
For instance, Wizards are magic users with a degree in their field of study, while Witches and Sorcerers have no formal education in magic and as such can't get the really good magic jobs that Wizards can, but probably have more connections with the urban underground (giving them Know Local as class skills).What is it about wizards that inspires such nauseating fanwankery?
Because people construe eduction with organized mass eduction. Like its Readng and Writing, or maybe modern particle or quantum physics. Instead of it being more like artistic fields where you can be a good technical artist but in the end amazing masterpieces require more then knowledge of the processes of art.
If one wants to go down that road, Sorcerers would be more akin to natural athletes. While their power does indeed come form within that doesn't mean they don't need training and practice to exploit the talent to its fullest. It's funny because the best sorcerers of high school would be the popular people with high Charisma and *murrow* magantisum.
*edit*
What I'm saying and backing Kthulhu a bit, wizard magic is not Science, it is Art. And individual art at that. Just copying spells from another Wizards spell book requires basically a retranslation of their notes so it fits your personal system. It cannot be assumed that Magic is standardizedable. You cannot for example go and get one sterilized, standardized, scientificized owl as a material componet.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBpF_Zj4OA
They will not sing that song a Wizard school.
The sorcerers that don't get training and practice are the ones stuck at the low levels.
Whereas wizards can get all the training and practice in the world and they will still lack natural ability.
Unless they're not super smart. In which case no amount of training and expericne will help them master more complex forms. A Wizards "natural" ability is their Intelligence which allows them come to an understating about magic.
Arguably in the 3e/OGL world talking about 'innate' talent is so much bull shit. Anyone with a charisma 10 + Spell Level can become a viable sorcerer. Just as anyone with 10 + Spell Level Intelligance can become a wizard. For game logic it is the Ability scores that denote 'natural' talent. Regardless of class that talent has to be trained in some form.
Keeping in mind the 'average' examples in the NPCS form will at best have 12 or 13 in their 'natural' talent.
All adding to wondering what Big Lemon is talking about an under class of non-wizard casters. It doesn't compute with logic.
Sorcs get more spells. If a power plant needs extra lightning bolts during peak hours, sorcerers are more cost effective.
I've personally never liked Elves as pure nature lovers. It's a kind of hold over mixed bag of merger of Tolkin's take on Nordic Elves and little forest sprites of Britain and else where. In Golarion you find the 'high-ish' elves (the ones that bailed before impact) have an air of "power" about them. Their stuff is naturish because they can spend hundreds of years shaping the world around them and actually live to see the results. Not because they have any great love for the "natural" order. If that were really the case in the D&D/Pathfinder traditions they'd be favoring Druid and Wisdom, not Wizard and Intelligence. Elves are power and time.
Take dog breeding. It is a human endeavor that has taken generations of practiced breeders to specialize the animals. For an Elf this could be their Masters/P.H.D. research to create new breed of dog, just one or two elves plus some undergraduate research assistants.
Look at geological processes. The Mississippi river is beautiful example of an ongoing geological process that causes us short lived humans no end of grief. The Mississippi is a meandering river and it's course is changing over time. In modern times it's been put on the Army Corp of Engineers to keep in place (a goofy notion for an elf who's lived long enough to actually see it change).
Global warming, another example. A venerable elf could possibly remember what the weather was like first hand in 1013, he may even have records. He'd have lived through the Little Ice Age.
It's something to consider how various races longevity impacts a Modern fantasy setting. There would be Elves alive today that fought as basically teens in the American revolutionary war. Just slapping fantasy races into a modernish setting often comes across as a bit hamfisted, unless you do it like Urban Arcana or Shadowrun where all these non-human races being (re)appearing spontaneously.
Elves are more long lived than humans in this world, but not to the degree commonly seen. They have, on average, an extra quarter century compared to humans.
How heavily based off? I live in California, and it's an odd mix of massive urban centers and vast agricultural "nothingness." For some reason, I would see this as being a place with an above average elven population.
Very similar. I grew up in San Jose (was there 18 years before going to Colorado and then Montana), so California comes naturally to me. I'll have to explain all the similarities and differences (there are some, such as English being commonly spoken but Spanish being dominant) later, as I don't have time right now.
The sorcerers that don't get training and practice are the ones stuck at the low levels.
Whereas wizards can get all the training and practice in the world and they will still lack natural ability.
Unless they're not super smart. In which case no amount of training and expericne will help them master more complex forms. A Wizards "natural" ability is their Intelligence which allows them come to an understating about magic.
Arguably in the 3e/OGL world talking about 'innate' talent is so much bull s$!*. Anyone with a charisma 10 + Spell Level can become a viable sorcerer. Just as anyone with 10 + Spell Level Intelligance can become a wizard. For game logic it is the Ability scores that denote 'natural' talent. Regardless of class that talent has to be trained in some form.
Keeping in mind the 'average' examples in the NPCS form will at best have 12 or 13 in their 'natural' talent.
All adding to wondering what Big Lemon is talking about an under class of non-wizard casters. It doesn't compute with logic.
This may be true in general 3e/OGL, but in this specific setting he ability to understand how magic is cast is an inborn talent. If you weren't born with it, you can't become a Wizard, regardless of how smart you are. That's why Wizards are so uncommon and technology so widespread. With Sorcerers, they have to have a magical bloodline in order to use magic. They have fewer spells known than Wizards because they lack the inborn talent to learn magic, but on the other hand they are better at metamagic (having spontaneous metamagic without increased casting time) because they can instinctively modify a spell instead of studying how to modify it.
What I'm saying and backing Kthulhu a bit, wizard magic is not Science, it is Art. And individual art at that. Just copying spells from another Wizards spell book requires basically a retranslation of their notes so it fits your personal system. It cannot be assumed that Magic is standardizedable. You cannot for example go and get one sterilized, standardized, scientificized owl as a material componet.
For this specific setting, this is the case.
I hope to have more information on the main nation up today or tomorrow.
I do have some more random info. I mentioned earlier that space technology is much more advanced than the modern day do to receiving more funding and emphasis. Technology here has gotten to the point where it is practical to ship things like mined resources from space to Earth, and supplies to colonies and outposts. Large quantities of platinum, mithril, adamantine, gold, and diamond exist on the planet people have colonized and on some of the outposts further out in space, and form a large part of my main nation's economy.
There is so much gold, platinum, and diamond out in space to be mined, however, that the prices of them have plummeted do to market saturation. This commonality has taken away their popularity with the jewelry and luxury industries (silver, ruby, emerald, sapphire, pearl, and opal rule the day here now), and gold and platinum are mostly used in industrial, electronic, chemistry, and medical uses and diamond in industrial uses.
I forgot to mention in the above post that gold and platinum have enough uses in the areas I listed above to keep demand for them rather high. It's just that the supply has increased faster than the demand, and a lot of the increased demand was do to lower prices caused by higher supply that made the materiels affordable for a lot of uses they used to be too expensive for. Diamond is in a similar situation with heavy industry, but to a lesser degree, as it has fewer applications than gold and platinum.
I guess the Pope is the only one high level enough to do a raise dead or resurrection with the diamonds.
I guess the Pope is the only one high level enough to do a raise dead or resurrection with the diamonds.
Well, I pretty much always either ban raise dead and resurrection or make it always cause brain damage (in this setting, it causes brain damage).
In game or do you hit the back of their head with your Louisville slugger? :)
If I run a game, space travel will be all about finding diamonds for resing important people. Most of this topic has been great.
In game or do you hit the back of their head with your Louisville slugger? :)
If I run a game, space travel will be all about finding diamonds for resing important people. Most of this topic has been great.
In game, of course. In my setting, souls just aren't meant to be brought back from the other side. It can be done, but not without damaging the soul enough to cause enough brain damage to make a character very hard to play.
On the other hand, I also established a difference between clinical death (heart has stopped) and total death (brain function has ceased). The soul does not leave the body until total death. Clinical death is the type of death one suffers through being killed through the rules as written, with total death occuring a few minutes after, except in cases where the method of death damaged the brain. If you use any sort of healing magic (even cure light wounds) on a dead character within a few minutes of death, they can be brought back without brain damage if the spell brings their HP total high enough to not be dead. After a few minutes have passed, you can still do this, but most likely with brain damage. A few minutes after that, you have to use resurrection magic, which always causes severe brain damage.
This means that resurrection magic is not available to players to bring back characters, but most character deaths can be reversed before resurrection magic becomes necessary. I have a problem with rationalizing people who have been buried not staying that way (except zombies, in which case I do like it) unless it only happens once in a blue moon, but I like the mechanic that players rarely lose a character permanently. I want to eliminate the first without the second, and this system works for me, because it establishes that the people being raised are not completely dead (the brain is still functional, as it is in real life for a few minutes after the heart stops), and, while most player characters will come back under this system, most people in the world as a whole who die don't get ressed in time because a mage usually isn't standing there when someone dies violently (my issue with resurrection is with rationalizing it being used on any rich person who dies, not with letting players bring their characters back).
Dragonstar looks fun, but I want to put my cash toward the complete Neverwinter Nights PC game collection and a few useful Dragon magazine PDFs instead of a new campaign setting.
.
Gog.com has the Diamond Edition for ten bucks.
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/neverwinter_nights_diamond_edition
I ended up deciding that there were too many reported problems getting that to work properly on Vista, and ended up giving Paizo all the money I had left in my account for some Dragon magazine issues (including the issue with Greyhawk 2000 mentioned above), a PDF about haunts, and the PDF version of the The Complete Tome of Horrors. That's alright, though, because I'll probably end up having more fun using the PDFs than I would have with the video game or Dragonstar. Tome of Horrors was totally worth it.
I still want to finish this project, but I'm pretty busy at Job Corps at the moment, and I'm not feeling to good, so it'll take a while to get more stuff up.
I've been doing some work on the feat system. I've taken away a lot of feats, turning them into things every character can do. This is because I don't want to charge players to do things that I feel a badass should already know how to do. I want players to buy fun feats, not feats they need in order to be effective. I also wanted to make it easier to have a running gunfight and use combat maneuvers. As for Sorcerers and metamagic, in this setting the magical blood of Sorcerers makes them better at spontaneously modifying spells than other spellcasters. Here are my notes thus far:
Power attack is an option available to all characters.
Combat expertise is an option available to all characters.
Spring attack and shot on the run are options available to all characters.
Antagonize is an option available to all characters.
Vital strike is an option available to all characters and scales with level.
Arcane blast and arcane shield are options available to all spellcasters.
Improved dirty trick, improved feint, improved reposition, improved steal, improved bull rush, improved drag, improved overrun, improved sunder, and improved trip are options available to all characters without the +2 bonus.
Deadly aim is an option available to all characters.
Gunsmithing is an option available to all characters.
Point-blank shot is an option available to all characters.
Clustered shots is an option available to all characters.
Disrupting shot is an option available to all characters.
Bullseye shot is an option available to all characters.
Strafe (D20 Modern) is an option available to all characters.
Two weapon fighting scales with level.
Burst fire (D20 Modern) is an option available to all characters.
Double tap (D20 Modern) is an option available to all characters.
Track is an option available to all characters.
Sorcerers do not need feats in order to use metamagic.
Rapid shot does not exist. Double tap is a replacement.
Parting shot is an option available to all characters.
I'm working on making a complete feat tree in Excel, but I don't know when it will be ready.
Are you basically removing Spring Attacks Pre-Requisites?
Also, I've been thinking on this setting, and magic needs to be a bigger part of it than it is as written. I'm thinking that maybe it's easy to create low level magic items but almost impossible to create higher level ones. Basically, bigger spells are exponentially harder to enchant items with than smaller spells. This means that low level items can be quickly mass produced, but high level items are incredibly rare.
Some basic items I'm looking at are alchemical fuels and magical grenades and ammunition (Fighting incorporeal creatures? Buy a box of ghost touch rounds.). You can also buy Cone of Cold in a Can (tm) (At a reduced power level, as 5th level is too high a spell level to easily enchant with.). Many city folk find it works wonders against would be rapists and muggers.
Are you basically removing Spring Attacks Pre-Requisites?
Yep. I don't see a problem with letting any character do a partial move, an attack, and another partial move. I see it as one of those things anybody should be allowed to do.
So instead of a Feat it is just a special Full-Round Action?
& We already have Alchemical Grenades. Ammo could be enchanted for 100 pieces instead of 50.
So instead of a Feat it is just a special Full-Round Action?
Yes. I want to move away from having required feats and toward feats being something you choose based on how cool they are, so a lot of what I see as must have feats are now special actions the majority of characters can perform.
& We already have Alchemical Grenades.
There will be alchemical grenades, but I'm also looking at the possibility of grenades enchanted with area of effect spells.
Ammo could be enchanted for 100 pieces instead of 50.
Yes.
Necklace of Fireball but cheaper? Sort of like a Wand or Potion kinda thing?
It's more like a scroll, but you don't have to be able to cast the spell (or cast spells at all, for that matter) to use it.
I've been thinking on the political structure of this world. The major political units are best described as a hybrid of European Union, United States, and NATO, being organizations of multiple nations that pool together their military and economic resources, and generally conduct diplomacy as one unified power, but have their own laws and customs for the most part. There are six of these unions, and they make up about 70% of the world's population. The rest of the world's nations are mostly small dictatorships.
The reason for the preponderance of such unions is rooted in the lack of any nation big enough to assume superpower status on it's own, an extensive cold war between several multi-state alliances, and the need to fund large scale technological projects involving undersea and space travel and colonization.
Also, mermaid terrorists.
You might look at Gundam 00's Governments for inspiration on Governments.
I've never watched much anime, so I'm unfamiliar.
3 Power Blocks.
The Union: USA expanded to cover most of the Americas.
The AEU(Advanced European Union): The European Union that has become more effective.
The HRL(Human Reform League): Communist USSR spread to most of Asia.
Then numerous small Countries/Factions.
So:
The Union & AEU are technologically superior, while the HRL is numerically superior.
I'm still working on this project, but it's going slow with my other responsibilities and with me being sick. I'll have an update soon.
That mermaid terrorist comment was serious, by the way. There are quite a few artificial islands and underwater colonies to go with those space colonies, and many merfolk see this as humans overstepping their bounds. There has been quite a bit of terrorist violence by these merfolk, and it presents quite a threat to these settlements.
In Seaquest, they had a guy who let then install gills, in return for waiving his sentence. maybe some people have gone over to the merfolk side by polymorphing.
I'm not sure on that.
I'm trying to update this project more often, and with more than random assorted ideas. For now, though, more random assorted ideas.
There is no alignment system. This world is gray, not black and white.
Elves believe in bioengineering. They think that nature is awesome, but can be improved upon just like technology. They do a lot with genetically modified organisms such as food and livestock, have adopted the idea of planting gardens on city rooftops wholesale (this practice can drop the average temperature of a city by several degrees), are all for alternative energy, and so on. They are very tech happy, and the tech is as green as possible. Their belief that they can engineer nature does, however, extend to the gene pool. Eugenics in the form of requiring government permission to have children, forced sterilization, and forced abortion is not unheard of in elven communities.
I'm not creating a new class devoted to technology. I think the tech whiz trope should be a role handed over to the Rogue. Not all Rogues are tech specialists, but I want the option there. It's non-magical, non-combat, and requires a high degree of expertise. That sounds like Rogue territory to me.
Some government organizations that I think PCs could join in the "Pacific Union" (parts of Western South America, Central America, Mexico, California [which includes Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and some territory I forget to mention], Oregon, Washington, Alaska, a lot of small island nations, the Phillipines, Japan, Korea, a few parts of China):
Pacific Union Magical Law Enforcement: Tasked with investigating magical crimes. Good for detective stories.
Ranger Service: Tasked with handling dangerous magicians or magical creatures. Rangers are only called in when a situation is believed to require the use of lethal force. If something doesn't need killing, magical law enforcement handles it. They are good for monster slaying stories.
Rapid Reaction Force: Since the "Pacific Union" is made up of multiple militaries, it takes time to organize a military response to a major situation. The RRF is tasked with buying that time. Formed of troops from across the "Pacific Union", it takes orders directly from the multinational council of the union. The RRF is meant to fight outnumbered and outgunned, and is tasked with keeping the enemy tied up as long as possible. To facilitate this, the RRF focuses on light equipment, mobile vehicles, and so on. They lack the staying power of a more conventional force like the Legion, buy they can pull of hit and run tactics long enough to seriously slow down and enemy force, and are hard to pin down and destroy. Good for military stories where the players want to be badass guerilla warriors.
California Foreign Legion: California is very much an immigrant country. Around 60 years ago, it was decided that immigrants should have the option of skipping the lengthy immigration process by serving California. This was the birth of the Legion. By volunteering for military service, a foreigner and their family are guaranteed instant approval of their immigration visas as soon as they pass their criminal background checks. These volunteers are taught English if necessary, and gain citizenship after 4 years of service or upon being injured in the line of duty. The members of the Legion have proven to be very good fighters, and as a result the Legion is often one of the first units sent into a situation. They very frequently serve alongside the RRF, and the two organizations have a sometimes friendly, sometimes not rivalry going on between them. Unlike the RRF, the Legion is a conventional military unit. The Legion is armed along similar lines as the United States Marine Corps. Good for military stories.
Special Tasks Division: The military special forces of the "Pacific Union", most commonly known by their nickname, Shinobi. Basically, think of them like Navy SEALs, and you've got a pretty good idea of what they do. Shinobi is good for commando stories.
See my organization topic. Some of your elves might be shippers, trying to develop the ultimate hybrid, just in case.
I wrote a d20 version (using d20 modern + 3.5, this was back in 2004) of shadowrun 3rd ed. It's a 246 page pdf. If you would like a copy so you can gut whatever you can find useful there just let me know.
An example of something you might find useful: a full cyberware and bioware system.