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Post by Lorhayden on Jan 17, 2013 19:31:21 GMT -6
I'm a HUGE fan, the problem arises if you are playing a low level game at that point they are pointless. In high level games they can be just so versatile and useful. Spell levels 8/8 Cleric/Wizard in one person is just awesome.
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Post by Erian El'ranelen on Jan 17, 2013 20:05:07 GMT -6
Taela is my first in the Pathfinder world. She is in a world created by our DM with heavy influence from a card game from our childhood, Magi-Nation. If you have heard of it or played it you have obtained a new level of awesomeness. He has included a really creepy cult of Gozreh in the campaign that has me really worried about the Pathfinder pantheon that the game will start with. Back up now, Magi-Nation is from your childhood...that means I'm really old! I'm familiar with it, but only vaguely as a card game and more so as a cartoon on Netflix that my son watches sometimes. I've seen the first few episodes and it did seem like a very cool setting... As for me and gaming, I don't get nearly as much in now with kids in the mix. I currently run a monthly session with my son, teaching him the basics of gaming. My wife and two buddies join in and we have a blast playing fast-and-lose PFRPG while improvising to accommodate cool ideas. It's set on the little island off the coast of Hermea (shhh...they don't know that, being shipwrecked and all). I really like The One Ring as a system and hope to get a game going in it sometime. I'm also helping with the final testing for an RPG/board game aimed at allowing 6+ year olds to game. It's called Storm Hollow: A Storyboard Adventure now, but until recently was known as Story Realms.
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Post by hark on Jan 17, 2013 20:18:45 GMT -6
Hark, could you explain a little bit about the mechanics of that system? You have my rapt interest. It's probably best to ask the question over on RPG.net. It has some very big fans and you are very likely to get one or more of the writers to show up and explain it in some detail. I'll try my best though. It is a dice pool system, in that you roll x dice and you use the results of the dice rolls to determine the outcome of your actions. The dice pool in LotW is called the Lake, a lot of the rules have a water theme to them. The Lake is for the most part a flat number of dice that rarely changes. It is always d10's. Successes are determined by setting matching sets of dice. The number of dice that roll the same number in a set takes the 10's place when calculating the quality of your success, and the number shown on the dice face is the 1's place. You can get more than one set on a roll. So for example you roll a Lake of 7 dice (the starting Lake for the game) and your dice come up. 9,9,9,6,6,4,4 You would have 3 sets with totals of 39, 26, and 24. Each set can be applied to a separate action, so the more sets you roll the more actions you can take on a given round. Ever notice how there is a lot going on in a fight in a kung-fu movie very fast? This is what this simulates. The results in the sets are modified by your stats, skills martials, secret arts, equipment, Lore sheets, etc. All stat modifiers come in increments of +-5. You also have what is called a River which is basically where you can set aside unused sets for use later, though there is a limit to the number of dice you can save in your River. Combat basically comes in an Initiative phase and an Attack Phase each round. In Initiative you use sets to determine who goes first, take actions called Waves, Recover Chi, and few other miscellaneous actions like analyze an enemies style. Waves are the big thing here. They include movement, and any action that does not directly affect another character. Opponents can stop a Wave by taking an action during their Attack Phase if they managed to beet your Initiative. The higher your results on the set for your Wave the harder it is for your opponent to stop your Wave. The Attack Phase is basically and opposed roll. Attacker uses sets to attack, add modifiers, and take some special actions. The Defender uses sets to defend against each of these. In defense you always can use a single die rather than a set so it is almost impossible to be defenseless. Special Attack actions Include things like Disrupt and Disorient, which are basically debuffs. Knockback, which lets you knock your opponent into an adjacent Zone, Secondary Attacks, or Elemental Attacks powered by Internal Kung Fu. Damage is a two step process, first it is calculated how much your attack beat your opponents defense. This determines how many Ripples are inflicted on your opponent more accurate attacks inflict more Ripples. Ripples by themselves do nothing, but they are collected over the course of battle. If your attack is Accurate enough you also Roll the number of Ripples the target has accumulated, chose a set (usually the highest set you roll), and add your damage to it. Your opponent Can spend Chi to buy dice to roll and add their Toughness to whatever sets they roll. If your damage roll than the opponents toughness roll you inflict a Chi Condition on them, the potency of the Chi Condition based on how much you overcame their toughness roll. Chi Conditions are used for pretty much everything, but the big one is combat. They come in all varieties ranging in potency from Trivial (no mechanical effect) through, Minor, Major, and in combat Taken Out (Which takes you out of combat and can mean you are dead if that is what your attacker wants. Combat come in positive and negative varieties, Hyperactivity's, giving a bonus, and Weaknesses giving a penalty. There are all sorts of different bonus and penalties with different mechanical implications, and a Chi condition is defined by the person inflicting it with some input and adjustment from the GM if needed. The magic of Chi Conditions is that they serve to encourage interesting role plaing behavior. The penalties of a Weakness can be avoided by acting in an appropriate manner, for example a leg wound would have no affect if you played up limping, favoring the injured leg and not moving around much. Similarly you only get the bonuses from a Hyperactivity if you act in a manner appropriate to the Chi Condition. Chi Conditions can be inflicted by all sorts of methods from combat injuries, social action, Secret Art (This is where the meat of Chi Conditions is hidden) and End of Combat Rippling Rolls. End of Combat Rippling Rolls, are basically everyone rolls a number of dice at the end of combat equal to the number Ripples they accumulated over the course of the fight. The rules differ based on how the fight ended Surrender, Fleeing, and Fighting until one side is Taken Out all have slightly different rules. Unlike normal combat Rippling Rolls, which must inflict a Chi Condition appropriate for the attack, End of Combat Rippling Rolls can be anything modified for Plausibility. So as the result of a fight your character might Fall in Love, Make a New Friend, Suffer a Curse, or collapse dead from a Heart Attack. That is most of it. I won't delve into Secret Arts the topic can be very complex. The only other thing of major note is Kung Fu Styles, which come in two varieties, External Kung Fu and Internal Kung Fu. External Kung Fu is basically the physical aspect of Kung Fu the punching, kicking, sword, swinging, etc these are mostly stat bonuses. Internal Kung Fu is all about manipulating your Chi to achieve various effects, it is what allows my character to empower his attacks with Fire. Everybody gets one Internal and one External Style for free at character creation. And that is my very long post summarizing Legends of the Wulin. Again you should probably take it to RPG.net if you have questions you can probably get the guy that wrote the rules to explain it all you to you in detail. He also posts about his personal game there and it does a great job of showing the rules in action.
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clannagh
Junior Member
Human Cleric of Gorum
Posts: 60
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Post by clannagh on Jan 17, 2013 22:40:09 GMT -6
I'm a HUGE fan, the problem arises if you are playing a low level game at that point they are pointless. In high level games they can be just so versatile and useful. Spell levels 8/8 Cleric/Wizard in one person is just awesome. Had a friend played a sorcerer/druid theurge and she packed the sorcerer side with extra summoning spells and ranged mayhem. She could wildshape to something chunky like Polar Bear, fill the map with low level summons then pick off the bad guys with sorceror spells while her animal companion munches on them, she hardly needed a party for most fights.
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Post by WxCougar on Jan 17, 2013 22:53:59 GMT -6
clannagh. That sounds like a pretty cool combo.
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clannagh
Junior Member
Human Cleric of Gorum
Posts: 60
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Post by clannagh on Jan 18, 2013 1:19:37 GMT -6
clannagh. That sounds like a pretty cool combo. It was, though it was under the 3.5 rules so Druids were pretty good all by themselves. Druids and Clerics ruled in 3.5.
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Post by Rufus on Jan 18, 2013 7:19:54 GMT -6
The D&D campaign I was in has kinda ground to a halt as the participants have moved too far apart geographically. The campaign was written from scratch and we were battling an evil sorcerer for control of a dimensional portal through which he was trying to summon some ancient lich-dragon thingy. He had a lot of fun with the environment and the perils of ice and snow, finding food and shelter and almost arctic conditions. I have just completed a Traveller campaign but as a published scenario I won't go into great detail. Suffice it to say that despite a good GM it was very much on rails and not much we did made any difference which was somewhat frustrating. My regular gaming group is about to start a Savage Worlds game but I haven't even got as far as buying the rules yet as a bookbinding course I'm doing is keeping me out of the picture for a couple of months. I've written a Traveller scenario to run at Travcon this year which is a small UK Traveller convention. I've playtested it on two groups so far and it still needs some tweaks. In my enthusiasm I've also started work on a scenario for next year I'm also working on my 30+ year old Metamorphosis Alpha scenarios with a view to maybe running the game again one day with the new 5th edition which I supported on Kickstarter. I think that's about it although I also have some other projects that need some love some day but for now are collecting dust. Ruf
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Post by Dario Tashavan on Jan 18, 2013 7:38:02 GMT -6
So, a couple years ago I was in a Legend of the Five Rings game. Me and my buddy decided to play twin brothers (because twins are an auspicious sign in that setting). I rolled up a Shugenja (a magic user) and he rolled up a Bushi (a warrior), brothers in the Imperial family. One of the sessions, the GM had the party participating in a tournament to try to win honor for our respective clans. It was an unarmed fighting tournament, so being as I was a caster, I sat it out and let my brother compete for the clan. He gets paired up against another PC's character, who's basically a hulking brute of a warrior (all strength, and he actually had the Large trait). Now, killing is against the rules of the tournament, and killing an Imperial is pretty much against every law ever, so despite the fact that this other PC is pummeling my brother left, right, and sideways, and taking no damage in return, my buddy playing my brother refuses to submit, intending to force the guy to knock him out. But the other PC isn't doing anything to pull his punches and beat my buddy's character to death in the middle of the arena.
So, my buddy announces he's dead after the hit (blew him clean past the "unconscious" range, like going from 7 to -22 in Pathfinder), and we all sort of look over at the other PC. My character rushes out and tries to heal his brother (I was a specialist in Water and Air magic, and water is healing), but it's too late. I stand up, and announce that I deck the other PC. The GM points out I'll lose honor for that act, I nod and accept that, and roll it. Now, remember that up to this point, he has taken no damage from my warrior brother. L5R, for those of you who don't know, rolls in an XkY format. Roll X 10-sided dice, keep Y of them of your choosing. If a die turns up 10, it explodes, reroll it and add to the total. My character was barely passable in unarmed combat. I rolled 1k1. I rolled something like 67 and one-shot knocked the other PC out, before walking out of the arena.
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Post by chaiguy on Jan 18, 2013 10:21:24 GMT -6
I really like this thread WxCougar, very good idea. I’ll list my current characters below.
Pathfinder: Played 2 times a month. Based off of the character Yachiru Kusajishi (anime Bleach) Halfling Barb 4, Rogue 4, Halfling Outrider 3.
Kirthfinder: Played about once a month. Based off of the character Relm Arrowny (video game Final Fantasy 6) Halfling sorcerer (7 fold veil) 2.
Iron Kingdoms (RPG): Played about once a month. Ogrun Bounty Hunter/Man-At-Arms Hero 3 XP. IK isn’t really level based, so he doesn’t have a level per se. Tuluk is a front line fighter (tank) type.
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Post by Nymerias on Jan 18, 2013 10:27:08 GMT -6
I suppose the easiest way to share my campaigns with you is this: D&D 4E I attempt to DM this one. Pathfinder I play Taela here.
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Post by Drake on Jan 18, 2013 10:59:07 GMT -6
Currently I'm in a D&D 3.5 home game playing a Chaotic Neutral Druid. I joined late in the campain, but the basics are we are from a Sothern Continent and Orcs were invading from a Northern Continent. We have mostly driven the Orcs back and we just established a foothold of our own on the Northern Continent.
We had been level 17 until the DM decided she couldn't handle that level character. (What, just because I slaughtered a small army in a single round and praticly one shotted a high level Lich?) So she had us down level to 10.
I also play Pathfinder Society on Saturdays where I have a level 3 Teifling Magus and a level 1 Aasimar Cleric of Calistria who for RP reasons are maternal twin sisters. (From human parents that have Celestial and Fiendish blood in their ansestry.) The Magus has a charisma of 5 and an inteligent weapon with a higher charisma then her so it's always telling her what to do.
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Post by Nymerias on Jan 18, 2013 11:13:32 GMT -6
Do you mean fraternal twins?
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Post by WxCougar on Jan 18, 2013 11:16:29 GMT -6
@dario - Nice on the one shot. I played a small scenario with Legend of the Five Rings at a small local Con. Quite fun. Drake - Low Charasma characters are fun. Though Shane, my magus, isn't that low, he's a 9, but I routinely roll really low in general so his diplomacy tends to scare people away. Which is great when you're supposed to be royalty lol. The party Oracle is trying to teach both boys how to be good diplomats, and is routinely pulling his hair out because Shane's not a people person, and Seth (the monk) is outgoing, but spouts out the strangest sayings.
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Post by Drake on Jan 18, 2013 11:19:56 GMT -6
Do you mean fraternal twins? Yes, yes I do. Same Mother, Same Father, same Pregnancy, different eggs.
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Post by Grendel Todd on Jan 26, 2013 6:17:49 GMT -6
I just finished playing in a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign that has been going on for roughly two and a half years with a red-headed Barbarian (Drunken Brute)/Alchemist (Vivisectionist)/Master Chymist half-Elf/half Shoanti named either "Dr. Tamari Xim" or "Iron-toothed Tam the Manslayer", depending on whether she's on her "meds" or not. Over winter-break I also got to play in an Iron Kingdoms one-shot with an Ogren Bounty Hunter/Soldier (named Gunter Gordson), who's main purpose in life seemed to be to take apart anything silly enough to get within reach (and he could run down most things out of reach in short order).
For the longest time I was the GM in my crowd, so right now I'm in an odd space having managed to go six-months not running anything: all that's about to change. Starting this next week I'll be taking over for my friend who had been running CotCT with a Kingmaker campaign on Wednesdays, and on weekends I'll be running a World of Darkness 2.0 game set in Alexandria in the Hellenistic Period (with a mixed group of immortals including an Indian Nosferatu Vampire, a Mummy, a Demon-Possessed Egyptian warrior and a mixed Greek-Persian Ghul Scholar).
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