The Gaming Den

The [Evil] king has a bodyguard of eight 9th-level fighters. He never strays from them, nor does he ever go outdoors. His castle is a Magnificent Mansion. Eight fighters is cutting it close though. The challenge would be better with a party two levels higher and 16 fighters instead. He's in a Magni...

Is there a reason to use color-based names for classes rather than just the official Magic classes? I mean, there are Acolytes, Devoted, Prophets, Initiates, Champions, Priests, Redeemers, Soulgazers, etc, but they are all explicitly White Clerics. When a character picks up new manas type and become...

Having mana drawn each turn is a way to organically allow abilities from multiple colors without making multi-coloring "too good" or five-coloring be an obvious thing to do. If you allow a certain number of superior mana cards that are worth more than a normal colored mana point, or speci...

To create a disadvantage for multi-colored characters that scales for arbitrary color combinations and reflects the mechanics of the card game. In that case, it runs counter to your prior claim that you would never choose hybrid -- hybrid abilities are abilities you can count on regardless of which...

RadiantPhoenix wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:How much extra annoyance would it be to 'draw' mana each turn?

What is the point of this?

To create a disadvantage for multi-colored characters that scales for arbitrary color combinations and reflects the mechanics of the card game.

In Magic, there are three ways to pick two colors. One ("Gold") requires you to reach two mana, and gives you access to the union of the abilities available to each color. The other ("Hybrid") has no level minimum, but limits you to the intersection of the abilities available to...

The ultimate counter to any realism argument is 'Somebody discovered that our current theories are slightly, but significantly flawed.'. That kind of thing happens in science on a fairly regular basis. Even things which are mathematically proven can turn out to be untrue when the proof includes some...

Races should probably be more or less specialized depending on the type. Each creature would get at least 1 mana from its race, which would be restricted (depending on the race) to anything from 5 to 0 colors, with colorless always being an option. More powerful races would start with more mana. [*]...

How damaging is it to have a 'guy who hides out in a cleverly disguised van and controls remote drones and runs comms for everyone else'? I seem to remember people throwing their arms up and yelling 'Oh Pee!', but it seems like a legit role to me for the guy that keeps the getaway car running.

Well, the special talent agents of the BPRD are basically a Deep One, a Fallen, a Golem and a revolving cast of minor beings. The only real problem is that in an actual game, Hellboy shouldn't be notably better than the other PCs. Glad I pegged him as the right splat, though. The fact that Hellboy ...

Whatever wrote:Space Oddity

Commander Chris Hadfield has been rocking the ISS for pretty much the entire time he's been up there, but this was especially great.

It's the end of an era.

Trying to run an AS game. If someone wanted to play, say, Hellboy*, are the non-playable splats generally balanced with the playables such that they could just use Troll or Akuma, or should something else be used to representthe half spawn son of the devil and a mortal witch with the fist of the wo...

If I were going to do the Tarot deck with symbols flavored after the syndicates, I'd probably go for clay tablets for the Makhzen. Like on the cards in Seven Wonders: http://us.asmodee.com/photos/b815c308833680dba446/1308622546768_88733415/1308622546768_88733415.jpg Other than that, the Covenant wo...

If one is making an Icarid who used his eldritch inspiration to create a suit of power armour, the inclination is to take War Form to represent the armour. This then leads to power armour that goes down to iron, which yes is perfectly fucking appropriate given that vampires are taken down by lousiv...

Ok, here's the thing- in a system where the rules say "you play a supernatural dingus, you can have magic swag. What does magic swag do? It does magic." players, or at least those I know, are going to be inclined to use the supernatural dingus powers to represent the extranormal capabilit...

A belated Happy Birthday to you, Frank. It's awesome that you manage to keep posting here despite med school and marriage.

If you're playing a Synthesist, is there a reason to not take "limbs" as many times as you can and become some sort of Hecatonchires? At just second level you'll be full-attacking at +3/+3/+3/+3/+3/+3 with a morningstar (1d8+3), four sickles (1d6+1), and battle aspergillum (1d6+1; 'cause w...

Apparently, during WW2, the norse pantheon sided with the Allies. Except Loki, who played both sides. I think I recall that correctly, anyway. Nah, it's the opposite. Loki was the only Aesir that sided with the allies, and it's not entirely clear why he did it. Heimdall might have helped to save so...

Two rolls per attack is great. Pretty much every attack involves an attacker and a victim; when both get to roll, both are physically involved. The cost is a very slight slowdown. Adding another roll to the mix gains you barely anything at all (nothing at all if the attributes always come in the sam...

So a god is something like Prometheus (who kind of wants to help humanity), and a titan is something like Yahweh (who wants to destroy the world and torture most of its inhabitants for eternity)? What about the sun? If the Sun is doctrinally the physical body of several different deities, are they a...

In Tome (so technically including non-Tome stuff, but I'll go with the most cost-effective method available), what ways are there to make the most of a big death threshold and keep fighting while in negatives? And just asking again, is a [Dark Minded] Cleric immune to his own Good Hope spell (or a ...

So, what's the difference between a titan and a god?

As long as we are condoning genociding Orc villages on the grounds that "Orcs are Evil" it is immoral to simultaneously contend that evil is "No Big Deal". You can have one or the other, but you seriously cannot have both. Can't we just condone genocide on the grounds that genoc...

When would you ever use "Earth" or "Water" damage? And is it really that intuitive to call suffocation "Air damage"?

The Judgement Vocalist "Listen very carefully... and die." Requirements: Race: Word Archon Hit Dice: d6 Base Attack Bonus: Poor Saving Throws: Good Ref and Will Skill Points: 6 + Int Class Skills: Appraise, Bluff, Concentration, Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Forgery, Gather Information, Int...