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Hicks
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Post by Hicks »

I mean, the reason tome items go up to +7 is because back in 3e you could have an empowered maximized bull's strength give you 5+1d2 strength for hours/level as a 8th level spell.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Regarding Warp Cult Ammunition "ratings".

The "Errors" section of the rules say that you have to roll as many (or more) successes as a firearms Ammunition rating in order to not run out of ammunition (or have your Plasma gun vent plasma on the user).
Basic Mechanics
When you perform an action, you roll a pile of d6s called a dicepool. Dice which come up as a 5 or 6 are hits. Those that show a number 1 are botches. A task will normally require a number of hits to succeed equal to the Difficulty Threshold, and throughout the game this will often just be abbreviated as “Threshold.” Any hits gained in addition to the difficulty threshold are Net Hits. If you get 4 or more net hits, you get a Critical Success. This basic terminology will be most familiar to those who have played Shadowrun, but it is really not much different from the Storytelling System (save that it uses d6s rather than d10s, and critical success is measured by how much you exceed the threshold rather than by getting an arbitrary number of hits and exceeding the threshold). Tasks also have an Error Threshold. If the total number of dice that come up as anything that isn't a botch match the Error Threshold, nothing happens. If they fall short of that, an error occurs whether the task succeeded or not.
....

Errors: Not everything goes according to plan, and things often go awry – especially in the Imperium of Man. Whenever a character makes a test, count the number of dice rolled that came up any number that wasn't a “1.” Every task will have an error threshold, and if not enough dice come up 2-6, then an error has occurred. In most cases, the error threshold is just twice the success threshold. Note therefore that it is entirely possible for a character to both succeed and have an error. This in no way negates the success, it just means that something untoward happened during the attempt. What happens because of the error is highly situational and is left to the CO to describe. Remember that a success is still a success and a failure is still a failure. So if the attempt is to jump across a gap, the fact that the character made an error while successfully jumping the gap may mean that they fall prone on the far side, but they won't fall down the gap because of that. Similarly, the fact that a character made no error while failing to clear the distance should be of little comfort if the way down is terribly far – though failing to make it across and making an error may involve an even more painful descent or a simple insult to injury as items fall out of pockets as the character falls themselves. The error threshold may go up or down depending upon the risk of the action, and the severity of an error depends upon the dangers present when an action is taking place. It is better to have an error when juggling kittens than it is to have an error while juggling chainswords.

Ammunition: Firing weapons is a special case. Characters are expected to fire weapons many times during battle, and the difficulty threshold varies wildly. But the difficulty threshold doesn't usually go up because the character is pushing themselves to the brink or anything, it just means that one shot or another is less likely to land on target. Therefore weapon tests have an Error threshold that is set by the weapon itself, not by the difficulty threshold of the shot being attempted. Most weapons that have such an error simply stop functioning for the rest of the battle, and it is for this reason that the Error Threshold for a weapon is called its “Ammunition” number in its stats. Some weapons (notably plasma guns) do something special when they have errors, and this is noted in their text descriptions.
Does the above mean that a plasma weapon (Ammunition 10) will vent unless the user gets 10+ hits each time they fire?
Plasma Pistol: Accuracy: 5 Recoil: 0 Type: Pistol Damage: 7 Range: 10 cm Ammunition: 10 Cost: 50
The Plasma Pistol fires ludicrously powerful bolts of searing plasma. Without constant maintenance, a Plasma Pistol can easily lose pressure in its internal plasma engine or overheat and vent plasma all over the operator. It can be set so that it will inflict a 7 damage hit on the operator on a failed ammunition roll rather than shut down. The Imperium often does this for their own plasma weapons, as getting a plasma weapon back to operation after shutdown requires a Technology (Plasma Physics) test with a difficulty of 3.
For some reason, it seems like plasma weapons will always vent on the user, unless they have dice pools in the... neighbourhood of 30-40+ dice.

Or am I missing something critical here? It feels like I'm overlooking something.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

The requirement is that 10 or more dice not roll a 1, not that 10 or more dice be hits. So it's more like you need 12+ dice to not expect your pistol to vent on you.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Ahhhh. Ok, that makes a lot more sense now. I was sure that I wasn't grokking the error mechanic properly.
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Post by Mord »

Quick opinion poll; there are no right answers here:

At the top levels of play in a hypothetical heroic adventure RPG where the math doesn't totally break down halfway up the ladder, should the players be fighting and defeating The Gods themselves, or should the capital-G Gods be beyond the players' reach even at the top levels modeled in your game system?

If you want an example:

Imagine that you are playing a long-running D&D campaign that has gone from 1st to 20th level. Your party is about to enter its final battle to save the universe and ensure the ultimate cosmic triumph of good and justice (or an uninterrupted eternity of hookers and blow for yourself; whatever). Only the BBEG stands in your path. Is the BBEG Lolth, or is the BBEG an Avatar of Lolth?
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Post by deaddmwalking »

D&D gods shouldn't be 'gods'. They should be like Orcus and the other Demon/Devil Kings. Lloth included. So it should be Lloth, but you should drop all of the very dumb deity rules.
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Post by RobbyPants »

Mord wrote:should the players be fighting and defeating The Gods themselves, or should the capital-G Gods be beyond the players' reach even at the top levels modeled in your game system?
Given that my last game was agnostic in the sense that no one knew if any gods existed, and different cultures posited different gods, I'd leave them out of reach.

Historically, they've always been "out of reach" because they're not real, and no one has interacted with them (despite numerous, unverifiable claims).

Aside from that, there's nothing saying you couldn't kill the gods. 20th level wizards are pretty hard core. It probably cheapens the concept of a deity, but maybe you don't care about that.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

The max level possible within the system should be the maximal power level possible within the setting. That's sort of the point of a level cap. But any given setting doesn't necessarily need to have zero-to-hero gameplay carry you all the way to the top.

So choose from the following:

- The players are 16th level and the BBEG is Lolth, who is CR 20.

- The players are 16th level and the BBEG is the Avatar of Lolth, which is CR 20. "Lolth" is the name for some sort of transcendent concept of spiders and treachery which doesn't have stats (and can't do anything except through the vehicles of its priests and avatars.)

- The players are 20th level and the BBEG is Lolth, who because she is individually CR 20 has brought along a bunch of demigods and demons to make it a proper boss fight.

- The players are 12th level and the BBEG is the avatar of Lolth, which is CR 16. Lolth herself is CR 20 and is beyond the ability of the PCs to fight.

Modulate the numbers to taste, and pick whichever works for your game.
Last edited by Schleiermacher on Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Grek »

There is plenty of room for NPCs who are an individual challenge to the party at level 20. The level cap is the maximum level for players; if you want players of that level to fight opponents more powerful than they are, you need to have monsters who are stronger than that.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

I am categorically opposed to mechanical differentiation between PCs and NPCs.

As such, I don't want characters at the level cap to fight opponents more individually powerful than they are because in a system that I would want to use, that would be self-contradictory. Which side of the conflict is the PCs and which is the NPCs is immaterial - in principle you should be able to use the same game to play Lolth trying to defend herself from the crusading heroes.
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Post by Kaelik »

Schleiermacher wrote:The max level possible within the system should be the maximal power level possible within the setting. That's sort of the point of a level cap. But any given setting doesn't necessarily need to have zero-to-hero gameplay carry you all the way to the top.

So choose from the following:

- The players are 16th level and the BBEG is Lolth, who is CR 20.

- The players are 16th level and the BBEG is the Avatar of Lolth, which is CR 20. "Lolth" is the name for some sort of transcendent concept of spiders and treachery which doesn't have stats (and can't do anything except through the vehicles of its priests and avatars.)

- The players are 20th level and the BBEG is Lolth, who because she is individually CR 20 has brought along a bunch of demigods and demons to make it a proper boss fight.

- The players are 12th level and the BBEG is the avatar of Lolth, which is CR 16. Lolth herself is CR 20 and is beyond the ability of the PCs to fight.

Modulate the numbers to taste, and pick whichever works for your game.
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Post by Chamomile »

If you're calling your game Dungeons and Dragons, I expect stabbing Lolth to death to be supported. Well, I don't really expect that to actually happen, so much as I consider it an important part of the game's pedigree and expect to be disappointed when it doesn't happen.

If your game isn't D&D or something like PF where it's not called D&D for copyright reasons but is clearly supposed to be D&D, then I'd still rather have more options supported instead of less, but I don't consider god-slaying to be a particularly important option over, say, boarding actions on the high seas. It's nice to have rules for that, but I don't care all that much if it's missing.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

Way to miss the point, Kaelik.

In fact, After Sundown handles this well in that the King with Three Shadows has a Potency of 10, which is spesifically called out as the highest rating anyone in the setting has, and his stats obey the same "6+Potency" cap as all other characters. A PC could totally become as personally badass as the King, or the King could even be a PC in a hypothetical game where that's appropriate, without the system shitting itself.
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Post by Kaelik »

Schleiermacher wrote:Way to miss the point, Kaelik.

In fact, After Sundown handles this well in that the King with Three Shadows has a Potency of 10, which is spesifically called out as the highest rating anyone in the setting has, and his stats obey the same "6+Potency" cap as all other characters. A PC could totally become as personally badass as the King, or the King could even be a PC in a hypothetical game where that's appropriate, without the system shitting itself.
And the fact that PCs don't have diefic powers doesn't mean they couldn't have diefic powers if they played gods. But that doesn't mean that dieties can't be any stronger than level 20 Wizards.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Mord wrote: Imagine that you are playing a long-running D&D campaign that has gone from 1st to 20th level. Your party is about to enter its final battle to save the universe and ensure the ultimate cosmic triumph of good and justice (or an uninterrupted eternity of hookers and blow for yourself; whatever). Only the BBEG stands in your path. Is the BBEG Lolth, or is the BBEG an Avatar of Lolth?
It's Lolth. It's Loth because if it's an Avatar of Lolth then it doesn't actually matter and your actual contribution to the battle to save the universe is exactly Jack and Shit. You're the chumps who were fighting a decoy while the real bad guy was getting away.


It's a thematic issue rather than a practical one. If you're having huge cosmic battles to save the or destroy the universe, then the PCs either play at that level or there is no reason for them to exist, they're just interchangable pawns that could be replaced with NPCs just fine.


But if you're say, playing Lord of the Rings, then there is no God but Eru, who is omnipotent and Omniscient, and Morgoth is just a bitch. And Sauron is just a bitch of a bitch. But you don't fight either of them instead you throw a magic doodad into a volcano because they were too arrogant to believe that anyone would. In Morgoth's case, the magic doodad that he tied his life and power to is the universe, so that's really the case of the PCs need to destroy the universe in order to defeat the bad guy. But they should still be able to destroy the universe, and have a means to destroy the universe.



But Avatar is Lolth is just a stupid cop-out. It's a stupid cop-out that doesn't fit thematically with "the gods are too powerful to fight directly."

If they're too powerful to fight directly, then you don't fucking fight them directly.

Avatar of Lolth is "these guys are too powerful to directly fight, but you're going to directly fight them anyway and we'll just say that it doesn't actually count, because we're too lazy and stupid to come up with a better ending.
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Post by Grek »

Kaelik wrote:Hot Take: Aftersundown is bad because human beings can't have more than 6 in a stat, but the King of Three Shadows has stats of like 16.

Or, alternative hot take: The fact that people have one cap on power doesn't mean that gods or demon princes can't have a different cap.
Hottest hot take: I'm pissed off that bears have a higher strength cap than humans.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Mord wrote:Quick opinion poll; there are no right answers here:

At the top levels of play in a hypothetical heroic adventure RPG where the math doesn't totally break down halfway up the ladder, should the players be fighting and defeating The Gods themselves, or should the capital-G Gods be beyond the players' reach even at the top levels modeled in your game system?

If you want an example:

Imagine that you are playing a long-running D&D campaign that has gone from 1st to 20th level. Your party is about to enter its final battle to save the universe and ensure the ultimate cosmic triumph of good and justice (or an uninterrupted eternity of hookers and blow for yourself; whatever). Only the BBEG stands in your path. Is the BBEG Lolth, or is the BBEG an Avatar of Lolth?
If we're baking a new cake from scratch in which masses of archers don't voltron into weapons of mass destruction and wizard spells aren't binary abilities leading to EITHER "the enemy suffers from spontaneous acute get fucked syndrome" OR "the enemy is immune to that thing you do no fun allowed," fuck it. Stab Lolth in her face and take her place. Why not?

If you can't write rules that result in satisfying BBEG's, keep gods off the table. It is not satisfying for the correct solution to Lolth to be a peasant militia. It is not satisfying for the correct solution to Lolth to be finger of death or whatever until she fails a save and then literally nothing else that happened mattered. It is not satisfying for the correct solution to Lolth to be to toothpick her to death because she is immune to everything her designers thought made the fight 'too easy.' In that case, you fight the Avatar of Lolth and put the torch to her demon spider breeding pits because goddamnit I was going to eat all those hobbits.
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Post by Red_Rob »

The biggest problem with having the Gods be defeatable enemies is that typically Gods and their associated religions are big parts of the setting background. If you let the players get to high level and stab Illuvatar in the face you then have to throw out a lot of the material in those books you bought, and as a bonus any future setting material mentioning them will need reworking.

Having Avatars and such allows you to have a big fight scene and "defeat" a God to prevent some world-shattering event or mcguffin whilst still having them be a thing in the world.

Personally I'd be fine with stabbable Gods, but if you go that route you need to be aware that they might get stabbed.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Red_Rob wrote:The biggest problem with having the Gods be defeatable enemies is that typically Gods and their associated religions are big parts of the setting background. If you let the players get to high level and stab Illuvatar in the face you then have to throw out a lot of the material in those books you bought, and as a bonus any future setting material mentioning them will need reworking.

Having Avatars and such allows you to have a big fight scene and "defeat" a God to prevent some world-shattering event or mcguffin whilst still having them be a thing in the world.

Personally I'd be fine with stabbable Gods, but if you go that route you need to be aware that they might get stabbed.
The same thing is true if you let your PCs stab the mayor of Hobbiton, but I don't think there's anyone arguing for mayors being invincible.


Really, any named character who has wordcount dedicated to them and who interacts with the PCs has this problem. But when you say that the mayor of Hobbiton is invincible because you paid money for the Hobbiton city book and don't want to have wasted it, your players aren't going to be happy.
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Post by nockermensch »

Really, the way D&D currently deals with gods will be disappointing no matter what. If you can just straight fly to Zeus' home and stab him in the face, the setting suffers from stupidity.

One of the causes for this stupidity is your answer to the question "how rare and special the PCs are?". If the answer to this question isn't "the rarest of the snowflakes", then I won't pay attention to whatever millenar mythology you want to tell me, because obviously whatever gods are there right now are just the last adventuring party that hit epic levels. In other words, having pantheons with coherent mythologies, families and names is not compatible with an advancement scheme where peasant heroes sometimes get into a power-up fast-track that allows them to topple a god after some time of "adventuring" stabbing manticores and orcs.

Deities need some kind of defense that goes beyond "AC and SR 80", and there need to be some kind of "the Multiverse abhorrs a vaccuum" mechanism in place where if you somehow kill the god of murder, then you're the new god of murder, and then clerics have dreams describing the fight so that they can update their holy books and start praying to you.
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Post by nockermensch »

hyzmarca wrote:
Red_Rob wrote:The biggest problem with having the Gods be defeatable enemies is that typically Gods and their associated religions are big parts of the setting background. If you let the players get to high level and stab Illuvatar in the face you then have to throw out a lot of the material in those books you bought, and as a bonus any future setting material mentioning them will need reworking.

Having Avatars and such allows you to have a big fight scene and "defeat" a God to prevent some world-shattering event or mcguffin whilst still having them be a thing in the world.

Personally I'd be fine with stabbable Gods, but if you go that route you need to be aware that they might get stabbed.
The same thing is true if you let your PCs stab the mayor of Hobbiton, but I don't think there's anyone arguing for mayors being invincible.
No. It's the same thing if you let your PCs stab "Paladin" or "Evoker".

A "Cleric of Lolth" is a character class that some people in the world supposedly take. If you can just smack Lolth around until she stops moving and then their clerics just stop working, you have killed an entire subset of a character class.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

Gods work best when anyone sufficiently powerful (or even not) can claim to be a god. There's a Star Trek Next Generation episode where a woman claims to be Satan returning to claim her pact (1000 years of peace) but it is all deception. There should be people that worship a variety of gods with overlapping and conflicting portfolios. You can worship any of the 30+ gods of murder - some of them can be racial pantheons, others can be cultural, and some can be blended. Some can be based off of mythic heroes and others can be completely fabricated. Any just because these gods don't 'exist' in any materially significant form doesn't mean you can't stab a Spider Demon that untold millions worship as a god.
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Post by nockermensch »

I'd be 100% in for god-killing in a RPG if the relevant rules for it were written by Neil Gaiman.
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Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
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Post by hyzmarca »

nockermensch wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:
Red_Rob wrote:The biggest problem with having the Gods be defeatable enemies is that typically Gods and their associated religions are big parts of the setting background. If you let the players get to high level and stab Illuvatar in the face you then have to throw out a lot of the material in those books you bought, and as a bonus any future setting material mentioning them will need reworking.

Having Avatars and such allows you to have a big fight scene and "defeat" a God to prevent some world-shattering event or mcguffin whilst still having them be a thing in the world.

Personally I'd be fine with stabbable Gods, but if you go that route you need to be aware that they might get stabbed.
The same thing is true if you let your PCs stab the mayor of Hobbiton, but I don't think there's anyone arguing for mayors being invincible.
No. It's the same thing if you let your PCs stab "Paladin" or "Evoker".

A "Cleric of Lolth" is a character class that some people in the world supposedly take. If you can just smack Lolth around until she stops moving and then their clerics just stop working, you have killed an entire subset of a character class.
That only matters to your campaign if one of your PCs is a Cleric of Lolth. And if he was, he probably got killed in a fratricidal argument that led up to the Lolth-stabbing.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Being able to capture the god of harvests so all crops whither, or trap the sun in a cave so the sun is no longer in the sky is a feature in some settings.
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