Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Kaelik]

Check these supplemental styles:


http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48588

[OgreBattle]

What are some good alternate names for the RIFTS archtypes Juicer (super drug guy, at a price) and Crazy (brain implants to induce psychic powers, at a price)

[phlapjackage]

What are some good alternate names for the RIFTS archtypes Juicer (super drug guy, at a price) and Crazy (brain implants to induce psychic powers, at a price)

Juicer:
OJ: the juice is loose!
Koolaid: oh yeah
Chemtrails
Junky
Gusher

Crazy:
Mental: as in, the British usage
Psycho
Phenom
Labrat
Tet

[virgil]

I occasionally poke at the assumed economics of D&D, and it's weird. For the price of a single +2 longsword, I could hire, outfit, and feed about three score level 1 mercenaries for an entire season. It's realizations like that which make me think of some nobleman finding a dead adventuring party and funds a mid-size army.

[erik]

What are some good alternate names for the RIFTS archtypes Juicer (super drug guy, at a price) and Crazy (brain implants to induce psychic powers, at a price)

I used Speedster and Rewire in Nexus.

Happier with Rewire than Speedster, but settled on both.

[Username17]

What are some good alternate names for the RIFTS archtypes Juicer (super drug guy, at a price) and Crazy (brain implants to induce psychic powers, at a price)

It depends on what kind of "feel" you are going for. The RIFTS Crazy is going for a very Freakazoid-esque vibe. Fishmalking cyborg psychics. With lots of real Fishmalking.

But if you were going for a more self-serious Dune vibe, you could go with "Mentat." We really need more to work with than "this character has the same power source as a RIFTS class."

-Username17

[virgil]

What are some good alternate names for the RIFTS archtypes Juicer (super drug guy, at a price) and Crazy (brain implants to induce psychic powers, at a price)

Kinda depends on the setting's context.

Juicer Bane, Pharmacist, Trainjumper/Trainrunner, Lancer (in reference to Lance Armstrong)
Crazy Lucy, Lawnmower, Chip, Momma's Boy (in-universe reference), Clock (as in overclocked)

[Starmaker]

I occasionally poke at the assumed economics of D&D, and it's weird. For the price of a single +2 longsword, I could hire, outfit, and feed about three score level 1 mercenaries for an entire season. It's realizations like that which make me think of some nobleman finding a dead adventuring party and funds a mid-size army.

D&D doesn't have armies, it has police. As a person who's too weak to have a good use for a +2 longsword, you might actually be lucky enough to sell it for the list price, but once you try to turn the proceeds into adventurer-grade power, a passing adventurer will stick a sword in you. Possibly the same sword.

[Schleiermacher]

If I use Frank and K's Maginomicon "character replacement" Polymorph rewrite (included below), does this look like a sensible implementation of Shapechange?

Polymorph Self

Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 4

Components: V, S

Casting Time: 1 Standard Action

Range: Self

Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)

Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)

Spell Resistance: No.

"A Turtle am I? Let's see how Turtlike I… CAN… BE! And with that, the mage was a giant turtle.

You vanish and a monster of your choice appears in your place. The creature shares your alignment, personality and goals, and will continue to act as you would within the limits of its intelligence and abilities. The creature must be at least 3 CR less than your character level, may not have the incorporeal or swarm subtype, and is unexceptional for its type. If the monster is killed, the spell is ended. When the spell ends, the monster vanishes and you appear where the monster was with an amount of lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage on you equal to the amount the monster had suffered when the spell ended (this means that if the spell ended because the monster was slain and the monster had an equal or greater number of hit points as you, you may well be dead when you appear).

Shapechange
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Self
Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: No.

As Polymorph Self, except that during the spell’s duration, as a standard action you may change into any other form that you could polymorph into. You retain this ability, and the factulty to choose your new form, regardless of your current form’s intelligence and knowledge. All lethal damage you suffer while polymorphed carries over between forms, as does nonlethal and ability damage unless you change into a form which is immune to such.

I guess it could include a material component, but I don't like the ones that serve only to put a price tag on spells and neither have anything to do with the function of the spell nor any logistical purpose (Spells like Raise Dead and Create Undead requiring expensive gemstones to prevent you from spamming them wherever you go makes sense.)

As a secondary question, how would you handle Polymorphing into spellcasting monsters? They don't always have a spell list provided for them, and having a player fill out a whole list on the fly, picking any spells they like, is obviously unworkable. But not letting monsters' spellcasting be used at all makes almost all such monsters worthless traps to polymorph into. Maybe that's the lesser of two evils, but I don't like it.

For prepared-caster monsters especially, both prohibiting players from using spellcasting (because the monster form hasn't had a chance to prepare spells) and allowing it (and having to adjudictate the content of entirely ephemeral creatures' hypothetical spellbooks) seems to raise giant logical issues.

Also on a balance note, characters who can cast the spell multiple times per day effectively get access to multiple full days' worth of spells - even though it's a much lower level character's allotment that seems like a big issue. Shapechange only exacerbates it of course.

Opinions?

[OgreBattle]

What are some good alternate names for the RIFTS archtypes Juicer (super drug guy, at a price) and Crazy (brain implants to induce psychic powers, at a price)

It depends on what kind of "feel" you are going for. The RIFTS Crazy is going for a very Freakazoid-esque vibe. Fishmalking cyborg psychics. With lots of real Fishmalking.

But if you were going for a more self-serious Dune vibe, you could go with "Mentat." We really need more to work with than "this character has the same power source as a RIFTS class."

A not-40k, Bloodborne-Lovecraftian-Conan occult feeling setting with a 1500's alchemy-science way of looking at science and technology, because magic and spirits are real. So most scientists would be called alchemists. Going with pseudo-German/German for various archtypes like...

Apotheker- master of biology, potion making, body mods, gene manipulation, etc.

Herzog- like a shadowrun rigger, master of robot drones. A nod to Herzog Zwei the Sega Genesis RTS game where you command robots.

Logiker- reads signs of heaven and earth to predict the future

Perhaps to continue the Sega game homages the juicer could be called an Altered (Beast). So less a "Xtreme Sports Commando YOLO" RIFTS vibe and more an "accursed werewolf losing their humanity" vibe. For the "brain implant artificial psyker losing their mind" maybe a German sounding supernatural like Spriggan or Geist. Geist is then a kinda sorta nod to the utterly unstoppable psycho soldier MD Geist.

[fbmf]

I know we've talked about this before, but Google is failing me: In 3.X D&D, do the power word spells key off the target's current hitpoints or the total maximum points?

Game On,
fbmf

[Kaelik]

I know we've talked about this before, but Google is failing me: In 3.X D&D, do the power word spells key off the target's current hitpoints or the total maximum points?

Game On,
fbmf

I have no idea why you need google for that.

"The duration of the spell depends on the target’s current hit point total. Any creature that currently has 201 or more hit points is unaffected by power word blind."

[Username17]

If you're going to be doing some sort of steam punk / Girl Genius thing with pseudo-German all over the place you're going to be looking for terms like "Cogminder," "Homunculus," and "Abomination."

-Username17

[fbmf]

I know we've talked about this before, but Google is failing me: In 3.X D&D, do the power word spells key off the target's current hitpoints or the total maximum points?

Game On,
fbmf

I have no idea why you need google for that.

"The duration of the spell depends on the target’s current hit point total. Any creature that currently has 201 or more hit points is unaffected by power word blind."

Holy shit. Heavy drinking throughout my 20s is catching up to me. Or maybe I was looking at the 3.0 version. I...dunno.

Thanks, Kaelik.

Game On,
fbmf

[Aryxbez]

OgreBattle So RPG Bundles are a thing, and I've been enjoying Bundles of Holding site, currently have a RIFTS Bundle, I was wondering if it was worthwhile to buy? I've never read RIFTS, so don't know how many supplements there are, or even the books that are worth getting to read (but never played because: RIFTS).

[OgreBattle]

I enjoy the worldbooks, Eric Wujick in particular is great at East Asian stuff.
I think Source Book One is about the pre RIFTS super computer in North 'Merica and the evil not genius just moderately creative nerd that gives him ideas, like making Amazonian babe androids to scout the surface because everyone likes Amazonian babes.

Those bundles cost about as much as two McDonald's value meals, I consider that's a fair price. I'm not Familiar with juicer uprising or psyscape but they should be interesting reads.

[Emerald]

Holy shit. Heavy drinking throughout my 20s is catching up to me. Or maybe I was looking at the 3.0 version. I...dunno.

Thanks, Kaelik.

Game On,
fbmf

You probably were:

This spell creates a wave of magical energy that blinds one or more creatures. It affects the creatures with the lowest hit point totals first, selecting subjects one at a time until the next target would put it over the limit of 200. (Creatures with negative hit points count as having 0 hit points.) The duration of the spell depends on the total hit points of the affected creatures:

You utter a single word of power that causes one creature of your choice to become blinded, whether the creature can hear the word or not. The duration of the spell depends on the target’s current hit point total. Any creature that currently has 201 or more hit points is unaffected by power word blind.

Both versions key off of current HP, but the 3.5 version is much more clear about it without the ambiguous "total hit points" wording.

[OgreBattle]

Are there any good recategorizations of D&D and Shadowrun's magic?

For SR4e I've seen things reorganized to...

Life- health and combat spells that don't create matter or shoot out classical elements
Energy Manipulation- Controlling/Creating fire, lightning, etc.
Matter manipulation- Control/create earth, water, etc.
Illusion- Illusion and mental manipulation
Detection- Remains as is

[Mord]

Are there any good recategorizations of D&D and Shadowrun's magic?

Reorganization to what end?

[OgreBattle]

Are there any good recategorizations of D&D and Shadowrun's magic?

Reorganization to what end?

More balanced specialists, or just for the heck of it to 'make more sense'
----
So in RPGs like RIFTS and Shirow's manga there's little drawback to being a full cyborg. To some extent Shadowrun is like that with all cyberlimbs and head/torso encased in shells.

There any games that put a heavier downtime resource restriction to cyborgs? Like a Robocop sort of thing where operation time is limited and maintenance is a daily thing, though perhaps not that far.

I figure this works best in a game where out-of-combat time doing footwork is as important as grid-battle-bossfight time. We've had previous threads about downtime and preptime stuff, the idea of having prep time be X amount of points to reshape narrative in your favor, like you encounter some guards so you go "In the footwork I did before this I planted some laxatives in his lunch so he's gonna go shit himself now" and the guard leaves.


So the cyborg is a cyber SWAT badass that you need heavy weaponry to scratch, but he needs weekly maintenance and civilization to keep him alive while the full flesh to lightly augmented guy can spend more time tailing suspects, scouting the wilderness, researching stuff.

[virgil]

I'm injecting Wish Economy in my Pathfinder game, emphasizing that they're required to craft items worth more than 8k. The question is whether I should use it as a fungible good, where 4000gp of Liquid Hope can be used to make a Hand of Glory. The alternative is for such materials to be more like 'primers' in Wish Economy scale magic items, where you get 4k worth of Gold Economy materials, and then slather any amount of Liquid Hope.

[Judging__Eagle]

Has anyone here done any review or looking at "Pugmire", the recent Onyx Path publications release?

People are buying it b/c doggos are pure, but... seriously Onyx Path?! I also understand that it's based off of 5e, so that makes it a "real" improvement over typical Onyx Path "rulebooks" which lack actual rules on mechanics.

http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/pugmire/

[Zaranthan]

I'm injecting Wish Economy

The numbers stay reasonable if you use Wish goods to replace the XP component of crafting, and let the other materials be Gold goods. That way you NEED the good stuff to make the good stuff, and you can keep track of how much actual mojo you're handing out, but you don't have four new tallies in the hundreds of thousands on everybody's character sheets.

It also makes it clear that Wish goods are not simply shaving zeroes off their gp totals. If the actual unit of measurement is different, people are less likely to try to convert one to the other (and thus, have to be reminded that "no, you can't do that").

[Hiram McDaniels]

What's the bare minimum amount of stats and skills that people will accept for a d&d type game?

Like microlite 20 for example is a minimalist revision of d&d 3.x has 3 stats (strength, dexterity and mind) and 4 skills (physical, knowledge, communication and subterfuge). But this is probably too minimalist for many players.

I'd like to figure out exactly how light a game can be, while still being able to support a long term campaign.

Footnote: microlite 20 doesn't really work as advertised. It's lighter on the player side, but dms probably couldn't run it without having the full 3e rules on hand.

[Schleiermacher]

I would prefer to have skills, but if you are talking about accept I definitely think you can run an old school game with four stats (STR/DEX/MIND/CHA, a refinement of the D&D six) and no skill system at all (just use stat checks, class features and player skill).