Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:01 pm

Oh, you could turn ordinary glass into bullet/everything proof glass?

Though, any reactor or engine that makes engineers go "It's no good Captain, she's gonna blow" if you run it too hard would be the obvious choice.

But, it depend on what rules for things degrading actually exist in the game.

EDIT: Oh, if you were on a plane and the undercarriage couldn't deploy, you could use it on the bottom of the plane and safely(ish) crashland in a big skid.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Tue Jul 10, 2018 4:46 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:As I understand it, the object isn't subject to age or wear of use, but deliberate attempts to damage it still work, because intention is magic. How that would interact with armor isn't clear.

Lots of food for thought, though. Thanks all.

Best thing I can think of for a medieval RPG would be some of the magic arrows. In a modern system, so little in the world wears out with regular use, like, volcanic glass is really hard on boots, so you could not buy new boots every couple days when studying volcanic glass, but eh.

You could probably design some things, ultra-light full scale passenger aircraft don't work because of metal fatigue, so you could ignore that and cut a lot of weight off with a highly flexible structure, but I doubt weight and fuel saving is anything to care about either.

Build big wobbly things, really, get out near the full elastic limit on construction materials instead of about 20% of it, as long as you don't "intend" to overload it, who cares.

Maybe a space elevator could work? I recall they're a bit further off with material limits than that, and again it's just weight and fuel savings.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jul 10, 2018 5:33 am

Oh, bullet proof vests would be a good candidate, actually. Even with the "intent is magic" thing. As I understand it, bullet proof vests are basically one-use, once they've been shot, they don't provide much protection anymore. With this spell, they don't degrade with shots, and you can, at least hypothetically, be hidden under bulky clothing, so people just try to shoot you, not knowing you're wearing a vest.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:28 am

Prak wrote:Oh, bullet proof vests would be a good candidate, actually. Even with the "intent is magic" thing. As I understand it, bullet proof vests are basically one-use, once they've been shot, they don't provide much protection anymore.

Oh, that's a good one, yeah.

Also, you could make a firearm out of a lightweight plastic, it'd be sturdier than a metal one but weigh less and not be picked up by metal detectors.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Jul 12, 2018 1:12 pm

How much conversion work would need to be done to port an SR4 like magic system to the AS core rules? The bones of the systems are close enough, and I really like the magic system in SR4.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Jul 12, 2018 4:01 pm

90% of the work would be in balancing and choosing reasonable numbers. Also, you'd need to decide whether you are going to have a Magic stat (ala Shadowrun) spell specific skills (ala After Sundown) or a tradition-based approach (ala Asymmetric Threat).

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Fri Jul 13, 2018 1:27 am

Grek wrote:90% of the work would be in balancing and choosing reasonable numbers. Also, you'd need to decide whether you are going to have a Magic stat (ala Shadowrun) spell specific skills (ala After Sundown) or a tradition-based approach (ala Asymmetric Threat).

It would be a tradition-based approach, like AT, since I really liked that idea.

One of the biggest things would be re-adapting the SR damage codes into AS's scaling damage. There'd also be reining in Conjuration, rejiggering the spell schools, and figuring out how and where to keep existing AS disciplines.

E: There's stuff about spell schools and Conjuration on the board, and at least for Celerity/Wired Reflexes stuff, there's moving away from Initiative Passes and using multitarget/autofire rules instead. Strength going insane I imagine can be tweaked by changing the numbers on War Form and Friends while making Strength not a casting stat.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:15 am

Grek wrote:Asymmetric Threat

What's the Status of Asymmetric Thread?
Last I remember are multiple Threads with Wall of Text's for concept/background, but few rules.
Anyone care to Point my lazy ass to the right direction if it's sort of finished?

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Sat Jul 14, 2018 5:12 am

Last I recall, Frank said he was working on math-hammering the rules. Then, as best as I can piece together, personal and professional stuff happened and he stopped having time. Current status unknown.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Jul 14, 2018 7:55 am

If you do enough poorly balanced additions to After Sundown saying it's Asymmetric Threat then anger will draw Frank back to working on it

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jul 14, 2018 8:09 am

Yeah I was going to say, in addition to all the potential real life shit that can come up, he's working on like 3-5 different RPGs, so you should just bait him into the one you care the most about by making up bad rules for that one.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 7:06 pm

I seem to remember from back in the 3.X days that spell descriptions (for instance) were written assuming the caster was a typical PHB humanoid. Was this convention ever stated in an official book?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 7:46 pm

NineInchNall wrote:I seem to remember from back in the 3.X days that spell descriptions (for instance) were written assuming the caster was a typical PHB humanoid. Was this convention ever stated in an official book?

What's the context? Some weird exploit?

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:18 am

Well, for instance beast claws from Complete Divine/Spell Compendium grants two claw attacks. Whether the damage the claws deal is a function of the caster's size depends on the writer's assumptions. To wit, if spells are written with an assumption of humanity, then the reader is expected to understand that things like claw damage supervene on qualities of the caster.

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:55 am

Um, no. The spell says the claws deal 1d4 damage. That's it. The spell doesn't do things it doesn't say it does. That way lies Pun-Pun and other deluded nonsense.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:47 am

Better example of an spell who assumes humanoid caster would be Alter Self, you can always change into an humanoid, even as outsider or aberration.

Trill · Post by **Trill** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:56 pm

Given that apparently most SR metaplot dangers are body snatchers (Insect Spirits, Shedim, CFD), I've wondered. What could you use as a big metaplot enemy that doesn't depend on body snatching?

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:57 pm

Trill wrote:Given that apparently most SR metaplot dangers are body snatchers (Insect Spirits, Shedim, CFD), I've wondered. What could you use as a big metaplot enemy that doesn't depend on body snatching?

Property developers. They are still snatching people, but they're doing it to get them out of the way, and the people they take just end up in a landfill, not in a hive or a lab.

Doomsday Christians. Population reduction extremists.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:30 pm

rasmuswagner wrote:
Trill wrote:Given that apparently most SR metaplot dangers are body snatchers (Insect Spirits, Shedim, CFD), I've wondered. What could you use as a big metaplot enemy that doesn't depend on body snatching?
Property developers. They are still snatching people, but they're doing it to get them out of the way, and the people they take just end up in a landfill, not in a hive or a lab.

Doomsday Christians. Population reduction extremists.

Accountants are great as big-bads for Shadowrun. It isn't one person doing evil because they're evil. It's a large group doing evil because someone ordered it to increase profits for the year. Just being a huge corporation, and destroying lives by doing their thing.

That, or the police. It's easier, because you can find the plot/conspiracy in the newpaper/your own experiences.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:31 am

Shadowrun baddies? The Corps.

They're people, you see, legally, for everything that gives them rights, and not people, for everything that would hold them responsible for the expression of those rights.

The corporation has the right to speak, but not the responsibility to do no harm with it.
The corporation has the right to move, but not to avoid stomping all over anyone else's interests while doing so.
The corporation has the right to own, but divestment and shell games react faster than lawsuits regarding their properties. Sell being sued, to someone with no money.
The corporation has the right to bear arms, but you can bet the murder charges never get beyond the trigger man, if they get that far.

There are shadowrunners because the corporations are not legally restrained, so their interactions with each other are psuedo-military in nature. You are how corps talk to each other when agreements go unfulfilled. What you dig up is names, on orders, things out of the reach of legal warrants, and find a way to get them to the press, or the crowd, or wherever else it makes that person's life worse for people knowing it. You are the conscience of the corporate body.

The horror is perhaps that you're really just part of the problem. Dun dun dun.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:58 pm

Insect Spirits are normally a huge problem because the conditions of the Shadowrun world under the corporations are such that they can get away with doing their thing, ruining Scientology-esque cults to indoctrinate and abduct poor people etc, for quite a while before anyone even notices.

And then Ares is likely to mishandle the situation in an attempt to blow them up, and you wind up with shit like the Seattle DMZ, where everyone was duped into staying in their homes while the military walled off their city and left them in there with the bugs.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Jul 20, 2018 10:24 am

So an idea I've got for a D&D-type dungeon crawler class does magical stuff with...

-Has 3 resource points: Red, Blue, Yellow
-Has X amount of slots that get filled with R, Y, B points
-Uses a set of abilities to gain RBY points
-Can then expend current RBY points for effects depending on what was filled.

I had a video game in mind for this as it's pretty fiddly, but I think it could work for tabletop if the numbers are kept low. Like you only ever have 2 slots and 3 elements.

RBY can be thematically different things like Fire-Ice-Lightning, with Fire-Fire-Fire turning into a big fire spell, or Fire-Ice spent on a misty illusion.

There an existing tabletop RPG with a system like that?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Jul 20, 2018 2:26 pm

OgreBattle wrote: RBY can be thematically different things like Fire-Ice-Lightning, with Fire-Fire-Fire turning into a big fire spell, or Fire-Ice spent on a misty illusion.

There an existing tabletop RPG with a system like that?

It's similar, but Kaelik made an elementalist sort of like that. It's effectively like having two points for each axis (fire-water, air-earth), and you move them around as you cast.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Fri Jul 20, 2018 2:56 pm

Waaaay back when, I played someone's homebrew game along that lines, where the rules changed every sessions and they ripped as much off Magic: The Gathering as possible. But the idea worked.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:21 pm

OgreBattle wrote:So an idea I've got for a D&D-type dungeon crawler class does magical stuff with...

-Has 3 resource points: Red, Blue, Yellow
-Has X amount of slots that get filled with R, Y, B points
-Uses a set of abilities to gain RBY points
-Can then expend current RBY points for effects depending on what was filled.

That's Magic of Blue, isn't it? Incarnum, Soulmelds, Essentia, you put some of it slots and some spent as points on other things and some boosting the slot stuff and classes get amounts of slots and blue stuff and other blue stuff, and yeah, it's terrible, and not just because the presented powers are designed to be balanced with Paladins and Fighters and WBL, though obviously that makes it bad in a 3.5 game, but it's a lot of work for no more pay off that much simpler systems, and the terminology used is almost like it's designed to be impenetrable and hard to recall.

I recall there's tome versions of one or two of them, probably a better start point.