[Let's Read] Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6

[Telok]

So I've been running a DtD40k7e game for... Gosh, it's been a year now. Oof. Well, any ways it's on pause due to the pandemic so I thought that I'd do a "let's read" of the two books (there's other cruft that people have made for it but I'm not using that and I don't care about it). I'll be typing as I read. I'm not going to cover every page in detail, but I will interject what I've done in my game and the lessons that I've learned through running it. I'll give a skim of what I skip too.

If you haven't heard of DtD40k7e you can check it out on tvtropes (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/DungeonsTheDragoning) or the 1d4chan wiki (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Dungeons:_the_Dragoning_40,000_7th_Edition). Be aware of your risks at those time-sinks.

Let's begin. With the first and main book, obviously.

After the cover is the dedication and copyright page. CopyPasta:

This is intended as a work of parody and should not be mistaken for a real roleplaying
game. It's a monster made from the corpses of a dozen roleplaying games, animated by
a vital spark that knows only darkness and terror.

Of course it turns out to be a perfectly viable RPG. Mind I've been playing/running for 30+ years now and I like to think that I can learn from mistakes (mine and others). So not exactly a noob at this. Still, this is not a beginner or intro level game. You definitely shouldn't play if primary school level math scares you or is 'too hard'.

Next, the table of contents. Boring. Skip. Although it does tell us there are 380+ pages to this thing.

Then there's this page after the TOC but before the intro... It's a rant/screed. The author cops an attitude. Here, have a taste:

If you cry when you lose a character,
get lost - you're going to cry. If it hurts your
fragile sensibilities to see your favorite charac-
ter get pounded unmercifully by horrorterrors
from beyond the Crystal Spheres, you'd better
look the other way...

... Few things are more satisfying than
tearing apart an entire army with an Aasimar
in powered armor, or slaying a dragon with
death-defying acrobatics and sword skills. Try
chaining together the special abilities of a few
Swordsman Schools, or abusing Porte for fun
and profit...

... This is a game made for you, by
people like you. It's not a load of sterilized
mass market drek designed by a room full of
corporate meatplows. This is raw. This is bru-
tal. This is DUNGEONS THE DRAGONING.
So play like you've got a pair or put
down the dice and go find a My Little Pony
doll.
Yup. Author rant. Whatever. Next!

There's a page of setting fluffage. Every chapter starts with one of these. It's fine, they're ignorable. On the other hand if you actually read them they all turn out to be DtD40k7e versions of popular media. Well, OK, not this first one. It's set-up for the setting.

Now the introduction. "What is a roleplaying game" part, boring and stupid. Oh, hey, dice info. It explains the roll & keep mechanic, forgetting to mention the it uses d10s. Although there was already a picture of a pile of d10s a couple pages ago. It does go over the fact that it's exploding dice (reroll & add) on a 10, so it's sort of implied. Talks about what you'll need, oh there's the ten sided dice mentioned. And how raises and checks work for degrees of success/failure.

Chapter 2: Character Creation
Starts with the section titles "Creating A Hero". Man, my guys did not end up heroes. They're sowing chaos, starting wars (that they don't stick around for), unleashing planet killing shadow-apocalypses, and allying with the worst monsters in the setting.

Step Zero: Character concept. A paragraph, says the expected stuff.

Step One: Starting Scores. Your stats. Pretty closely follows the WhiteWolf vamp/etc. games style. There are 9 abilities, each starts at one, you get 6, 4, 2 points to put into categories of scores. Interestingly the 9 abilities for a grid on the character sheet. There are three horizontal categories and three vertical categories. So you've got the usual physical, mental, social split. But there's also a power, fitness, resistance split. Select three for your primary, secondary, tertiary. No stat can go over 4 points in this step. Normally no stat can go over 5 (for general people style characters & npcs, some monsters are exceptions). Some characters can sometimes get stats to 6. Plus there are buff spells for temporary boosts. I suppose that you could take the six dot limit on the character sheets as a hard maximum, but going over 5-6 is sort of implied by certain abilities. In play it doesn't really matter, it's rare and never permanent.

Skills, similar to the attributes, split into mental, physical, social. But no extra categories. You get 8, 6, and 4 points. Skills start at zero and can't go over 3 in this step. Some skills are 'advanced' or really 'trained only' type skills. But that's a bit vague and there are times when untrained checks make sense. Call it a guideline. We'll get to specific explanations of attributes and skills later. There's a sidebar/box text with alternate char gen via spending a starting amount of xp.

Step Two: Choose a race. Select from WH40K and D&D races. Note that WH Eldar/Dark Eldar are in where as Eladrin/Dark Eladrin. There's side effects to this: one point to one of two stats, two free skill points in certain skills, your size stat, and a racial power. Some of the racial powers are actual magic powers, dragonborn get a breath weapon, some are basically bonus feats. Gnome is actually surprisingly popular, one each weapon and armor proficiency... any weapon/armor proficiency (there aren't pre-requisites but some feats are only in specific classes at specific levels, this racial 'power' skips past that).

Step Three: Choose your Exaltation. Translation = What's Your Superpower? Choose from vampire, werewolf, atlantean, chosen, paragon, promethean, daemonhost. It is seriously your superpower(s). These are not balanced. Heck I wouldn't really know where to start trying to balance these concepts. That said werewolf does have an issue. We'll come to that later.

Step Four: Starting Class. If you read ahead then you'll know that there are the pathed classes and some really basic classes. Basic classes have few/no prerequisites, but they aren't trash and there are a couple gems in them (Peasant allows for cheaper increases in all attributes, Initiate is the only place to find the Minor Magic feat that allows 1/2 price access to magic, several have skill specializations or +2 HP for completing them, not trash classes). They exist to allow you to enter the pathed classes if you came out with a character that doesn't qualify. We'll get to specific classes later.

Step Five: Backgrounds. Start with stuff, status, allies, etc. You get 7 points and can't go above three in any one background during this step. These are actually important because they have real effects outside of combat (sometimes in combat too). Most people will be tempted to go with artifacts (magic items), wealth($$$), inheritance(extra stuff). But we've been learning that beyond putting a couple points in wealth the other stuff, allies, contacts, backing, status, followers, etc., is actually very relevant outside of combat. My players are sort of flailing around for how to do stuff because they are essentially rich, social pariah, mercenaries. It turns out that if you pretty much go with the default setting that there are social networks and knowing a guy who knows a guy is really quite useful. That said, holdings can get you a major spaceship or super-tank.

It's also important to note that the players need to actually READ the backgrounds and think about them. One of my players just wrote down "Contacts:1". It came up every so often and I'd ask "Who is your contact?". I finally decided, based on some of the other backgrounds, that there's a sort of 3d graph of these things with the axis being availability, power, and response on a five point scale. Total the axis to rating*5, nothing can be less than 1. So his generic "contact" is availability 3 (widespread but not ubiquitous) + power 1 (general info, no specifics) + response 1 (you can look things up and maybe ask questions that might be answered sometime this year). Which works out to something like a subscription to an exclusive news/encyclopedia organization or a secret wikipedia for particular kinds of information. He has access in any civilized place with a public or semi-public computerized information network, but it provides information about people, events, and stuff, there's no asking a specific question and getting a reliable answer any time soon. This is a framework that I wouldn't use if he'd written anything down, it pretty much amounts to roll 1d10 once in a while and if it's 5+ you get a little bonus info bit. Essentially, if the player picks something like allies or backing, they need to actually say something about them or the DM just makes them up as it suits them. Which could turn out to be near useless for the character if circumstances change.

Step Six: Alignment. I'm not really actually using this much, I think there have been two alignment checks the entire game so far. None of the characters are especially interested in it and they all tended to pick alignments that fit the character they're playing. It is important, and I would enforce it rigorously if someone was a Chosen, but these guys don't regularly get into situations where it would matter much. It's not D&D alignment. They took a mish-mash of D&D and WH deities, threw together a short sort of likes/dislikes list, and that's your alignment. Piss off your god enough and gain deformities, insanity, health issues. Very old testament, leavened with a bit of semi-subtle humour. The second book has more detailed lists (and a bit more humour in them) plus an option for unaligned people. Praise Vectron!

Step Seven: XP. You get 600 xp to buy stuff with. The table in where is actually quite important. You also need to cross reference with the beginning of the Classes chapter. It tells you that too. Make sure people check the asterisks at the bottom. I had someone try to spend 400 xp to get three backgrounds at 5, that should take them about 700 - 800 XP. Magic, Sword Schools, Gun Kata, and your power stat are capped at your highest class level. There are ways to start a character having finished a level 1 class and entered a level 2 class (the gnome race tends to feature heavily) so it's actually worth mentioning the limit during character creation.

As a plus this is the point that you can buy assets and hindrances, and you only buy them at char gen. Assets are non-specific bonuses that generally can't be gotten any other way. If you're in a combat heavy game Sand and Sturdy are really good buys. If you're in a class path that involves buying multiple weapon proficiencies then Academy will save you 100 XP at some point. Or you can spend 300 XP for +5 to disguise yourself and +3k1 to seduce anything. With not much work you can start with 10k7 for a social skill. So averaging 51 to 56, before adding something like re-rolling 1s. Incompetent, a starting character here is not... Unless you do something weird like have no weapon/armor proficiencies, wear power armor, fight non-mooks, have 1s in most of your non-physical stats, and never engage in any social or intellectual activities. But you have to try to get that off.

Hindrances are extra XP for a hit to your character. They are completely optional. The most effective character in our game has none. All Thumbs is great if you don't need to make rolls with technology or science, and never plan on buying any skills in them. Bad Luck is OK if you don't feel the need to reroll anything. Grim Servant O' Death is probably my favourite, simply because it's a big "make me part of the plot" flag.

Exalt Assets are just assets specific to particular exalts. Some are quite nice. Only paragons can have more than one. That's an important little rule tucked away in the asset section.

Section Eight: Equipment. Choose from one of five starting packages. Warrior, misc., technical, dandy, spacer. Everyone gets a weapon or two, some stuff and clothing, usually an armor. This is in addition to anything you get from the inheritance background. Not too much to say about this part. It does mention the traditional RPG method of gearing up, kill'em and take their stuff.

Section Nine: Finishing Touches. Derived statistics and stuff.
* Size: Each point is about 0.5 meters of height. Roughly. Halflings are 2, humans 4, ork & assimar are 5.
* Static Defence: D&D AC. The "did you get hit?" stat. 10+(3*dex+wis)-(2*size), so a halfling (racial power to use just dex for defence calculations) with the asset that gives them a +4 static defence and six dex can get to 46. That'd be such a dodgy bugger that people will just start saturating the area with explosives when you come along. The bottom is generally 6 but for big enough critters it can go negative. It matters sometimes, really.
* Hit Points: 2*(Willpower + Con). Most non-exalt NPCs don't get the x2 multiplier. Running out of hit points is fun.
* Mental Defence: Actually more like social/mental AC. 5 + 5*Composure. When we get to social conflict later you'll find out how to brainwash someone and change their alignment, values, etc.
* Resolve: Social/Mental hit points, running out of these is how you get talked into doing stupid stuff while you're drunk. Willpower + Composure.
* Speed: Str + Dex in meters. Times 6 for running. Just Dex for shifting without opportunity attacks.
* Resilience: The boogeyman of combat. Take damage, subtract armor, divide by resilience, drop fractions, take the result as wounds. Generally between 2 and 10. I've been considering an alternative where resilience is subtracted from damage and then "HP" are your hit points * resilience. The 'hard' math would move from on-hit to during character generation/leveling and it would give almost the same result. The only issue would be crits. Crits happen when you run out of hit points. Any how, math -> Resil = (size + level)/2 -> ROUND UP -> +1
* Hero Points: You get two. Plus one if you're human (that's their racial power). Plus one if you're a paragon. I think I've given out... two? Maybe only one. In a year of playing. Granted there's been a lot of not-very-heroic greed & stuff going on.
* Bringing Your Character To Life: Essentially a half page of trying to get people to think about the character's backstory and how they fit into the world. You know, the part that 95% of all the players will ignore because they have their combat stats now and want to go kill stuff without considering that there could be any consequences to wholesale slaughter and nuking cities from orbit.

Then there's a page of an example character being made, actually useful if you aren't familiar with the system yet. A filled out character sheet for the example character. And that's the end of the character creation chapter.

Tune in next time for what all your attributes and skills do. Not really, just descriptions about what they are. What they actually do is in among the rules in different sections. But I'll be whinging about that stuff during the chapter, so no worries.

[Laserlight]

Subscribed to this thread. :-)

[Telok]

This should be a pretty fast chapter. Characteristics and skills. I'm not going to bother globbering on about what your strength stat does, etc. Likewise the drive skill ought to be fairly obvious.

It begins by telling you that you roll stat + skill and keep the stat. This makes it sound like you can run on the stat and just trust high stats for everything, but that doesn't really always work out real well. On the other hand skills cost half as much XP to raise. Honestly 4k2 is perfectly fine for a lot of stuff. Heck, in our game a random prosecutor got a 4k2 charisma+academic roll of 84 to convict one of the PCs of piracy (it was a great closing argument). 6k3 is nice and respectable too, it's what good quality minion squads (we'll get there towards then end of the book) get to roll and even mid-high power PCs tend to respect those.

Important bit: Specialties. Skills and attributes get a specialty at 4 points. If the DM approves the specialty and decides it applies to rolls then you reroll 1s for the skill or attribute. It turns out that the favorite acrobatics specialty is... dodging. And the favorite dexterity specialty is... dodging. 8k4r1 (roll 8, keep 4, reroll 1s) is "only" a +2 to the average of 34 for 8k4 at the 50/50 mark. Mathematically over a million rolls it isn't much. Individually in game it turns out to be important rather often. Getting to reroll a pair of 1s and getting an explosion on one of them is pretty nice for people. And, by the math is't so little over the long haul that I'm perfectly happy to let people reroll all 1s on any test that the can reroll any 1s on. Plus it was way way way easier to write a dice rolling app for that than for only rerolling ones on some dice and having to pick how many of them each time.

Socials: Charisma, "innately likeable", "confidence and social grace", "force their point of view into a conversation". Fellowship, "appearance and ... self-expression", "coerce, manipulate, and bully". Composure, "emotional fortitude, restraint, and calm". So we have effect of personality, social interaction ability, and self control in three different stats. Composure actually turns out to be fairly useful, charisma is more first impressions and quick interactions, while fellowship is for more in-depth interactions.

Mentals are intelligence, wisdom, and willpower. Wisdom has been cut down to effectively paying attention and comprehending what's happening. SO the guy who can hear faint sounds is no longer necessarily also iron willed and level headed.

Skills: I'll note the usual stat associated with each one in parentheses, but if you give me a half decent excuse then using another stat is perfectly fine. All it takes is a tiny bit of effort and imagination to get me to allow a swap to a better stat, just a bit of engagement with the game beyond the bloody minimum outside of combat. You don't want to know how rare that is. It's depressing.

Academic Lore (Int) -> covers all the stuff you'd think required book learning and research in a library or laboratory. Includes law and lawyering stuff.
Acrobatics (Dex) -> includes a suggested specialty of "Totally Cool Awesome Gymnastics", that players will totally ignore for "Dodge" even if you can convince me (often not hard) that it's the same bloody thing in most cases.
Animal Ken (Composure), Arcana (Int), Athletics (Constitution), Ballistics (Level), Brawl (Level)...
Charm (Fellowship)-> Friendly diplomacy and seduction type stuff. Gosh, it might take more than one stat to be a social god.
Command (Cha) -> only works on underlings and people you'd expect to obey orders anyways.
Common Lore (Int) -> Stuff you learn by living or traveling somewhere. Includes local politics, criminality, sports figures, and where not to get your haircut. I've used this with Fellowship to do rumor gathering and bar hopping for information.
Craft (Wis), Deceive (Cha), Disguise (Fellowship), Drive (Dex/Int)...
Forbidden Lore (Int) -> The dark and illegal side of Arcana for most people. Frankly it's more for the dark and illegal side of all the lore skills. Can use charisma to fast talk impress cultists of your bona fides.
Intimidation (Cha) -> noted that you could in theory use almost any attribute. The knife scene in Aliens for example would have used dexterity.
Larceny (Dex) -> Illegal activity & stage magic acts. Covers all the picking plus safes, security systems, magic wards, etc.
Medic (Wis), Perception (Wis), Performer (Fellowship), Persuasion (Cha), Pilot (Dex)...
Politics (Wis) -> Not just politics & politicians but also dealing with bureaucracy and following the money.
Scrutiny (Composure) -> Sense motive skill in D&D, but also social perception and 'ask the DM for a hunch' when talking to NPCs (then I call for fellowship).
Stealth (Dex), Tech-Use (Int), Weaponry (Level)...

Skills are pretty much self explanatory. Well, that was fast. Let's do races too.

Assimar. +1 to Wis or Con, +1 to command and ballistics (apparently yelling at people and shooting them is their thing), size 5 (about 2.5 meters tall~ish). They get two bonus feats, jaded and fearless. Essentially they're immune to all fear and being pinned down by gunfire. Also they apparently don't reproduce... Guess what? They're WH40k terminators.

Dark Eldarin. Guess what? They're drow. +1 charisma or dexterity, +1 to deceive and forbidden lore, size 3 (a bit smaller than a human). Hmm... 'depraved' is the 14th word in their description. I wonder how that holds up across all the races. Assimar have 'exist to serve' as words 3, 4, and 5. Well, we'll see. But the DE racial power is a 4m sphere of darkness, conjured as a half action, lasts 1 round per level, once per scene (twice at level 3, three times at level 5). No notes on where it appears. We've decided that it's self centered, like the dark eldarin. Not a bad ability but it turns out that when you pop a darkness people tend to just chuck a grenade at it.

Dragonborn. No real defining descriptor early in the write up and not much else for me to say about them. +1 Str or Cha, +1 command and intimidate (racially good at being drill instructors?), size 5. Dragon breath, once per scene, works like a flamer (equipment: weapon) goes up to two uses at level 3 and three uses at level 5. A 20m cone (real-ish cones, about 45 degrees, not a quarter of the bloody map, not square, and includes a height consideration) of dodge or !FIRE!. That's... not an unimpressive amount of f-u. However I will note that flame weapons don't roll to hit, they have a user dexterity based target number to evade. Those who don't evade may end up on fire.

Eldarin. 'Created as soldiers' is in the first sentence. +1 Wis or Int, +1 academic lore and arcana, size 3. Once per scene teleport twice your speed as a half action, two times at 3rd, three times at 5th (I'm going to call this the 'standard power advancement'). Must be able to see your destination. As a side note recall that speed is Str+Dex, so you're probably looking at an 8m to 12m teleport for starting characters. Apparently they actually have to walk through the warp for this? Nobody has played one so I can't definitively say how useful it is. But wait until my comments on the conjuration spells in the magic section.

Elfy-welfy. Ok, ok. In the book it's just "Elf", but it's late and small children should be statted monsters in all game systems. Distant relations of the eldarin. +1 Wis or Dex, +1 perception and charm, size 3. Racial power is elven accuracy, once a scene reroll a failed weaponry or ballistics test, standard power advancement. What? No brawling rerolls? Well, it's a reroll you don't have to spend a hero point on and it isn't locked up in a 5th level class. Not bad, just shooty.

Gnome. 'Religious reverence for technology', hrm. Although, there's a pretty decent explanation for why they're bad inventors. A species created as repair workers with muscle memory repair ability. So they don't actually understand much of the high tech they may be working with. Of course that's generic racial background, get yourself a couple 4-5 dot skills and a good high intelligence and rock on as a real inventor. Oh, +1 Intelligence or Fellowship (persuasive little buggers), size 3. Racial power is start with any one weapon and any one armor proficiency. That's attractive. Start the game knowing how to wear power armor and owning a suit of it through your backgrounds. Tempting. I think there are two backup characters who are gnomes.

Halfling. "Short, lazy, and generally a criminal element", I like them already. That's why my game has a halfling Mafia, they own a pan-galactic pizza maga-franchise. It's hilarious, people are polite to munchkins in pin stripe suits with bad faux Italian accents. +1 Intelligence or Fellowship, +1 larceny and deceive, size 2. Recial power is using dexterity only to calculate static defense. Yes a starting 5 Dex halfling can have a (10-4+(6*5)) 36 static defense. Hard to hit. But that size factors into resilience too, so they tend to take noticeably more damage.

Human. Word number 13 is 'clueless'. Welcome to the club hairy ape. +1 any one characteristic, +1 any two skills, size 4. Racial power is starting with one more hero point. That's one more reroll per session and one more change to escape certain death. Boring.

Ork. Fight fight fight fight. +1 strength or willpower, +1 intimidate and scrutiny (scrutiny? racially better at sizing up enemies? better at guessing about other people's motives? what?), size 5. Racial power is to heal your level in hit points at the start of every combat. Useful if you see a bunch of fights in a sequence, not so much otherwise.

Squat. It's a dwarf, bring on the short jokes. Word number two in the description is 'proud'. +1 constitution or willpower (yer getting those bonus hit points whether you like it or not), +1 craft and common lore, size 3. Actually just sort of average size among the races then. Racial power is counting your resilience as one higher for purposes of losing hit points. Since that's the only thing that resilience is for in this book so it's sort of always on-ish... yay fighty power?

Tau. Word number two is 'mysterious', because frankly unless you're blatantly ripping off all of WH40K it's hard to write much about them. We're only ripping of some here. +1 Intelligence or Composure, +1 common lore and persuasion, size 4. Frankly I don't know how well any of that matches with WH40K lore, most of my exposure has been adjacent to the war game with friends into it and the older versions of WHFRP. Racial power is... if you successfully dodge a melee attack make a free withdraw action of half the normal distance... Checking... Well withdrawing is normally a full action that moves you your speed. So, a no provoke 1/2 speed move when you dodge. I guess that tells us where you're likely putting stat points.

Tiefling. "The mirror image of the Aasimar", except more demony and with better fashion sense. Same fluff as assimar, just for the other side. No natural breeding, just indoctrination and mutation. +1 Dexterity or Constitution, +1 intimidate and weaponry, size 5. Racial power is re-rolling 1s on damage dice.

That's all our races. Definite trade-offs in there. Your race matters most if you're getting a stat to 4-5 or a skill to 4. Getting to 4 gets you a specialty (reroll 1s when it applies) and getting the stat to 5 is worth 400xp once play begins. Assimar feats are OK, but the gnome feats rock out pretty well. Either one is free xp if you're taking a class that includes them and they both give useful stuff right out of the gate. The eldarins and humans have more non-combat applications for their powers, halflings and squats are a good defensive choices (dodgy or 'tough for the size'). The ork, tau, and tiefling powers are a little weak. They can only really apply in combat and then in pretty specific situations. Although the tiefling power is not terrible, if you grab a bunch of dice rolled for damage it can matter.

Let's math that (actually I'm going to poke a brute force probability calculation program I wrote), I want to know what a 1s reroll is really worth. Statistically, out of a million rolls. The numbers are % of rolls at or below that point. I tend to compare 10/90 and 40/50/60, for my extremes and my normals. But that's too much typing.



6k3 :: 10%/50%/90% -> 18/25/38
reroll 1s :: add +1, except at the 90% mark they add +2

8k3 :: 10%/50%/90% -> 20/28/42
reroll 1s :: add +2

10k3 ::10%/50%/90% -> 22/31/44
reroll 1s :: add +2, except at 90% it's +3

6k6 ::10%/50%/90% -> 24/35/51
reroll 1s :: adds +4

8k6 ::10%/50%/90% -> 31/43/60
reroll 1s :: adds +4

10k6 ::10%/50%/90% -> 36/49/65
reroll 1s :: adds +4

9k9 ::10%/50%/90% -> 39/54/72
reroll 1s :: +6/+5/+6, the +5 is probably a reporting artifact due to rounding of percentages and a not perfectly smooth distribution

10k9 ::10%/50%/90% -> 43/58/77
reroll 1s :: adds +6

Well that was interesting, the reroll 1s value scales mostly in line with the kept dice. Rolled dice don't make much difference. In the aggregate it's not a bit difference. At the table it feels much bigger, much more noticeable. So, a minor math perk with an outsized emotional effect. Interesting.

Something that I've skipped is that each race gets two pages. One page is the intro bit, stats stuff, and a picture. The next page is all fluff, no mechanics. A bit about the general physical qualities, a bit about their general psych/soci-ologies, and a handful of paragraphs about... well it's basically what a DM would want as backstory, it's sample heroes (no stats). A couple sentences about where they're from, how they got here, what they're like and what they want. Short, concise, useful. I wish players would do that. Heck, I wish players would do anything backstory-ish. At all.

Next time it's the exaltations. They make much more difference in playing the characters than race does. Thus I'll have much more to say about them.

[The Glyphstone]

Is Ballistics a skill? It got left off the skills list if it is. And what is its melee attack opposite number?

[Telok]

Is Ballistics a skill? It got left off the skills list if it is. And what is its melee attack opposite number?

It's in there, I just skimmed the self explanatory skills into list parts.

You have ballistics, weaponry, and brawling. They work differently from other skills, for attacking, feinting, and parrying you roll level+skill then keep skill, if you're proficent in the weapon. If you aren't proficent then you roll and keep just the skill.

You can still roll them as normal skill+attribues for other stuff if it comes up, I think I called for ballistics + wisdom to correctly shoot a power coupling on an antigrav using a plasma gun to give an extremely temporary boost for a jump stunt.

[Telok]

You know what I'm not doing? I'm not entering the last four sessions of game notes into my game log and writing up all the upcoming stuff. Although I did get the crazed crafter lich's challenge written up, along with doing the math to make sure that it is technically possible to to succeed and survive the drinking game.

Stuff it. Let's start doing the exaltations.

Starting with a page of general stuff about different exalts, they become them differently... Stuff. A note that each exalt is someone who is willing to use their powers. No such thing as a vampire unwilling to drink blood. No way to make someone stop being an exalt, you have to kill them. Huh, even the gods can un-exalt someone. Functionally immortal, immune to disease (true, well... the no rules for it kind of true, but if they're immune then you don't need rules for it), resistant to poison (actually not really an more than other people with decent Constitutions).

Next page, exalt powers and the Tell. All exalts have static, always on powers and weakness. They all have a Power stat, capped at equal to your level. They all have a Resource stat, very important, amount and recovery are different for each and they can all spend them differently. But all exalts have a few ways in common to spend resource: heal a hit point, add a rolled die to a skill test, GAIN AN ADDITIONAL REACTION, recover from being stunned or dazed. I'm sorry, was one of those important? These are all essentially 'free' actions, but the healing can only take place outside of combat (there's an exception of course). This does mean that as long as you have resource left you are essentially immune to the two worst status effects in a game. Death is not as bad as stun-lock, you have other ways to deal with that.

IMPORTANT: You can only spend resource points equal to your power stat each round.
IMPORTANT: You can only spend resource points equal to your power stat each round.
IMPORTANT: You can only spend resource points equal to your power stat each round.

The tell is something I haven't really pushed too much in our game. I should start. Essentially it's a power display that gets stronger as the scene goes on and the exalt spends resource points. Vamps get more vampy (pale & fangy), werewolves get more wolfy, atlanteans get glowy and a spirit/avatar thingy, paragons just get more noticeable, chosen get a god symbol floating above them and an appropriately colored aura, promethians get more go-go gadget bits, daemon hosts get mutations (that go away after the scene thankfully).

A single resource point requires perception+wisdom vs 20 to notice, two or three is automatically noticed, four or five resource points and they glow enough to read by or emit darkness sufficient to extinguish small campfires. Six plus... hmm, glowing avatar, bright enough to shine for kilometers, mortals stand in awe or flee screaming... I should have been using this. We had a vampire who would blow 12-15 resource points in a combat and then call for a blood drive when he got back to the ship (they paid bonuses). Should have been using this. I'll try to remember it in the future.

A side note about mortal heroes and how to play a non-exalt. "Fragile and short lived". Sounds about right, but it's something you can do for a challenge. You just don't get an exaltation, power score, or resource points.

First exalt: Atlanteans. Half a page of fluffy stuff. Powers. This is what we're here for. Magical Aptitude, start with a point in a magic school and that school counts as always being in class for xp costs to buy it up. Plus whenever they roll for Psychic Phenomena / Warp Crapola they get to roll twice and take either one or both effects. Prestidigitation, like the D&D spell, at will. Past Lives, all skills are treated as basic skills (may use untrained).

Resource, called motes, charisma + intelligence + 2x power stat. When you spend a resource point you get a point of paradox. While you have paradox keeping a die with a 9 during a magic test causes you to immediately convert a point of paradox back into resource the fast way. Multiple 9s stack. Turing paradox back into resource the slow way is one hour of meditation per paradox accompanied with some special effects. The fast way is to roll for Warp Crapola. Hmm... Later in the magic chapter we'll find that keeping a 10s die forces a Warp Crapola roll at a bonus or +5 or +10 per 10s die kept. Of course you've got that whole roll twice and choose thing. Yeah, the original warp effects tables are way too small if you're using this one much.

Power, called gnosis:
1, choose 3 skills and you can go to 6 dots in them, plus you get a bonus specialty of Syrneth in each one. Yeah, I can see it now, arcana, ballistics, and weaponry/brawling. You dirty min-maxxers. There are a category of weapons that's specifically syrneth and the weapon skills are kept dice instead of rolled dice. Arcana may be a "knowledge" skill but it's really quite useful to everyone because most spell saves are arcana+stat vs the caster's casting roll.
2, empower spell, spend a resource point and get 3 more rolled dice for the next spell you cast... Wait, it precisely says "treat your level and rank in magic schools as three higher for the next spell". Ok, that's a bit more bang for the buck. Fireball does 2k1 damage per level... No cap too.
3, spend two resource points instead of a hero point to reroll any skill that you have a specialization (any specialization) in. Pretty good.
4, maximize spell, BEFORE CASTING spend any number or resource points (so much for being limited to you power stat, at least for this) for each one spent count one die of the magic roll as a 10 (non-exploding). Well, you're going to get the spell off. Go high enough and it's essentially un-resistable if it has a save. But you can put out one heck of a warp effects roll doing this too. In fact you're pretty much guaranteed to.
5, quicken spell, spend one resource point to cast a spell as a free action. "Yeah, I'm just gonna spend all my resource points on free action spells and frag all the dragons. You all take a break while I roll bunches of dice and tell you if the encounter turns into us vs a bunch of daemon lords."

So. Good if you want to be a caster, good if you want to be the universe's best swordsman/gunman. You have dangerous choices to make and something that might, usually, often, sometimes, mitigate the side effects. Considering one of the entries on the Warp Crapola table is instant death...

Then we get a page of common atleantean physical features, the tell, and almost a half page column on roleplaying tips and suggestions. Next page has a bit for the DM on how to work with or use an atlantean in the game. A bit of 'culture' and how several different races react to them (several different races were created by the Syrenth). Then a bit about how to adapr, change, re-fluff atlanteans. Like changing it to a possessing ancestor spirit or some such. Not bad, not useless.

And I think that's all for tonight.

[QuadraticGish]

Patiently waiting to see more.

[Telok]

Nice to know people are interested.

Tonight's exalt: Chosen.

Chosen by the gods "becoming less human and more a devil or god themselves. Many are devoted worshippers of their chosen deity"." So, we can go all 'god picked me as a champion and I pissed in his beer' about this. Ah, and of course we come with built in allies, enemies, and npcs with preconceptions. Not as backgrounds of course, just as fluff for the DM to victimize us with. Although if you're playing this game and you feel bad when your character gets kicked in the face you might be playing the wrong game. I did offer someone for their character to get a cybernetic neck that would keep their head alive for 2d10 minutes the next time they got beheaded. He survived.

Let see, your power stat is capped at both your level and half your devotion score. Annoying, that's more xp to raise your power stat. Although devotion isn't especially expensive compared to magic, sword schools, or the power stat. You lose access to the higher powers if your devotion drops too low, but you don't lose the power stat points themselves. An important distinction sometimes. As long as your power stat is at least 2 you can lose a point off the power stat instead of burning a hero point to survive certain death. And since you can't buy hero points (I've given out two in over a year of playing, and one of those was probably being overly generous) but you can buy the power stat... Spend a resource point to replace any one rolled die with your devotion score, can't use this on an alignment check (alignment checks: roll 1d10 and if it's under your devotion score lose a point of devotion, rolled when you transgress against your religion, side effects at 5 devotion and less). As long as you're doing something for your god get a bonus on alignment checks equal to your power score. Man, Chosen of Vectron could be fun with that, especially coupled with the delusion that you're a prophet of Vectron (or is it a delusion?).

Resource stat: Favor. Max of devotion plus power stat. Restored daily with a 'special ritual'. Hm... Choose right and your special ritual could be killing something while shouting the name of your god. Or... ork... Khorne... just fighting. Well, once a day any ways.

Power stat is Favor. Powers are:
1, overbeing, gain aura (armor/DR vs magic) equal to twice your power stat.
2, divine protection, the first time each round you would take critical damage roll a d10 and if it's less than devotion then negate the crit. Well that's annoying, for the DM. Until you're out of hit points damage doesn't matter. Once you're out of hit points you start taking crits, and nasty enough crits can kill you. Buy your devotion up to 8 and 2/3 of the first crit each round just doesn't happen. People are going to have to get really nasty to take you down.
3, prayer strip, when preforming your daily refresh ritual (probably not in combat though) make a prayer strip. May make one a day and have a number equal to your power stat. Prayer strips may be used as a.. point of favor... So it's an extra point of resource. Effectively doubles your power stat for resource points but these take longer to recover. Also may be used by anyone holding it as long as you consider them an ally. Nice.
4, trial of faith, when you keep a 1 on a test that can have dangerous consequences (most of combat, long falls, tricky diplomatic situations, DM has final say of course) then recover a resource point. Max of one point per test. Well, if you're good enough at combat to keep some 1s then you can pretty easily recharge your resources.
5, demigod, instead of adding a rolled die when spending a resource point on a skill test just add 10. if you spend 5 points you get a base 50 for 5 kept dice, might was well roll your other dice too since you could roll a 1 and recover one of those points.

Well. You're a hard bugger to kill.

A page of fluffy stuff. The tell is a glowing deity symbol that just gets brighter as stuff happens. Yadda yadda. Next page is the page of playing them, DMing them, and adapting... No bloody kidding you care about your devotion score more than the others. Nobody else has any mechanics tied to it beyond just not massively violating the tenets of their religion/morals. Here it caps you power stat. Ah, can't be cut off from the power. Takes more to justify changing alignment but that's still doable and you don't lose your powers for doing so. That's nice.

DMing them. Yeah, easy. The exalt comes with built in allies, enemies, contacts, mentors, etc., that are wholly DM controlled and defined. Make your DMs life easy and play a Chosen. Comes with the plus that you're harder to kill than the "average" exalt. Just make sure to choose an alignment that suits how you want to play. Chosen in the culture is opposite altanteans. Those buggers don't have anything unifying, you have the opposite problem.

Adaptation is notes as being harder to pull off. One option is to just be a young/fledgling god. That could be interesting.

Eh, I'll do another. But chosen aren't going to be harder to hurt or challenge then anyone else (as long as they aren't level 5, power stat 5, and devotion 10), but they'll sure be harder to keep down and take out.

Next up: Daemonhost.

Oh, congratulations. You're a monster. "On the verge of death willing to give up anything to live". Hm, ought to be lots of them then. Souls fuse, willpower, stuff. You're possessed by a daemon and you asked it to.

Powers include a free rank in a magic school and it always counts as in-class for xp costs. Spend a resource point to get your power stat added as rolled dice to a magic test.

Resource stat: Essence, willpower + charisma + (2x power stat). When you spend a resource point you get a point of 'resonance' that you have to convert back. Free action willpower vs 10+(2x resonance). Success converts one back to a resource point, failure converts one back to a resource point, does a hit point of damage, and you have to test again if you still have any resonance. Great, you can cascade away your hit points when you're low on resource points. Oh, and keeping any 9s on magic tests while you have resonance makes you roll revert one immediately, multiple 9s stack. Well, I can see that willpower is a very important stat for us. Ah, gain a bite attack for 1k1 rending damage, for each hit point you inflict with this on a living creature you convert one resonance back into a resource point. If it's a helpless or willing target you don't have to inflict damage. Well that can be abused if you take the right background.

Power stat: Arcanoi.
1, daemonic (gee, ya couldn'ta guessed?), reduce all damage except that from magic effects and silver weapons, by constitution+power stat. Nice, free armor bonus.
2, unnatural stats, you can take your stats to six. Dwarf, con, will, racial feat to use con for dex in calculating static defence. You can get tough, eventually. 500 xp to take a stat from 5 to 6. Eventually is the key word here.
3, scorn earth, hover at will, move at normal speed in all three dimensions. Supernatural fly speed. Useful.
4, not of this world, do not suffer the effects of critical hits unless they would kill you. So, crit immune unless it's a kill shot. That's really strong, although I'm not sure it's better than chosen's divine protection at power stat 2. They're both really good in different ways.
5, black miracle, unless a a ritual is performed (and burning a hero point will "foil" it) the daemonhost regenerates out of the Warp, takes a week per point of resonance you have (if you know you're going down try to fill up on resource points, although with probably 16 to 22 that could be hard to do) to "find a new vessel". Stats stay the same (victim mutates, keep your skills, etc.), appearance can change if the daemon host want to. Great. You're a daemon. Almost literally. You horrible person, you.

You are nasty hard to kill and keep dead, similar to the chosen but it takes longer to come fully on line. The willpower and charisma focus along with the magic school and the bonus dice on magic tests can make you a pretty good spell slinger, like the atlantean. Although you can't mitigate the warp crapola that you can call down nearly as well as atlanteans can. If you take a few points of followers you can refresh your resource points easily out of combat, or make a chompy melee brute character and get them back in combat. Which is actually quite like the vampire exalt. Notably if you're not afraid to lose all your hit points at suck up a bunch of crit 1 effects (note sure if it should be energy or rending type crits, energy 1 crits are temporary nuisances while rending crits can inflict fatigue and KO the character) you can just chain fail (probably) all of your resource conversion rolls to refill.

Fluffy stuff. You look like a tiefling because of mutations. They only get more as you get more powerful. Unfortunately these are'nt the mechanical bonus type mutations, just "Hey! Demony guy here!" type mutations. The tell is... creeping tattoos? WTF? And more mutations, of course. Oop, there's a "special something" that daemons need to make a daemonhost. So they aren't swarming all over the place. Hey, all sorts of daemons "A Daemon of Khorne can be an honorable warrior just as easily as one serving Bahamut can be a bloodthirsty tyrant."

Bizarre urges and desires drive them to acts that are immoral and criminal. Well then, normal murderhobo PCs?

DM advice: "Discuss with the player just what kind of temptations they'd like to have, and include them once in a while." Plus daemonhosts of Order daemons tend to be mistaken for angels. Although apparently the general population of the DtD40k7e universe actually read their religious texts as kids, because: "usually feared and shunned by every culture, regardless of where they come from".

Culture: None. Even daemons don't like other daemons.

Adaptation notes.. include a reminder that some of the 'angels' in RL religions were originally described... interestingly. Also we could run as an entity of pure magic or an atlantean come back 'wrong'.

So that's two hard(er) to kill exalts, both decent choices. The daemonhost can easily make a pretty good caster, Although the chosen can make a reliable caster with that ability to replace dice with static numbers. Get up to power stat 4 and you're bouncing tank rounds off your chest. OK, it'll sting a little, but still. The single most damaging vehicle weapon does 6k3+30 with penetration 20. That means it's ignoring your armor and averaging 55 damage. With stats and level at 4 they'll be... resilience probably 6, 16+ hit points, reduce damage by 8 if a daemon host, so take 8 or 9 wounds. That means we need to be at probably 5 hit points or less before we're in danger of dying from a gun capable of damaging starships. An anti-armor missile is just 5k4, barely half that damage. And even if it does kill you, you'll get better.

[Telok]

All right, what have we got tonight? A short one.

Ah, paragons. "Born with a supernatural level of talent and raw ability". Start with 2 more hero points, so two more re-rolls each session and two extra chances to cheat death. A +1 to the other racial stat option, the one that you didn't take which you chose your race. Never surprised. That's actually a pretty good perk. Gain one of your racial feats.

Resource stat: Action points, equal to your level + power stat. Regained at the beginning of every game session.

Power stat: Excellence.
1, pressure points, at the start of a scene get 3x your power stat is points. That's also the maximum number of pressure points you can have. Spend any number of them to modify any skill roll. They just straight add to your number. Regain a pressure point when an opponent spends a resource, pressure, or hero point. It's another resource to track, but it turns out to be quite useful. Stops those 'missed by 1' issues.
2, annoying long name of a power, whenever you try a 2 or 3 die stunt regain one resource point. Encouragement to stunt and not be a boring 'I attack again, buh...' idiot. Probably my biggest beef with the mainstream RPGs these days, when that's the best thing to do in basically all circumstances. Characters standing around and repeatedly punching each other. Boring.
3, another long bloody name,at the beginning of your turn regain pressure points equal to your power stat. Real incentive to get to level 3 there as otherwise pressure points don't come back too often.
4, stupid long power names, when stunting your dice explode on 9s and 10s. Significantly more powerful that it sounds. You're already getting bonus dice for stunting, so throw a 2 die stunt on a 8k4 skill and go from a 33-37 average spread with 25 at 10% and 49 at 90% to a 42-48 average spread and 29/66 for the 10%/90%. You want another basically +10 on your rolls? Don't be boring.
5, tired of stupid long power names, when you stunt and succeed allies taking the same action get a bonus equal to the number of pressure points you spent (you're spending pressure points on this). Pull a stunt to shoot someone when you're standing at the head or an army with automatic weapons and spend your 15 pressure points.

Lots of tools to make sure that you succeed at what you attempt. Good for dodgy type characters. On to the fluff pages. Physically "Elf Paragons are as Elfy as they come". Their tell is just becoming more and more noticeable. I'm not sure how I'd run that when they're trying to stealth and spending lots of resource points to do so. Becoming a paragon... you're born with it and there's no other option (by default at least).

Playing a paragon is pretty much playing a classic action hero. No super flashy powers (unless you're really into magic I guess) just lots of luck and being really good at what you do. No standing still, you're seriously rewarded for stunting. For the DM just give them lots of props, scenery, and locations to stunt with. Be liberal about it. Expect them to succeed a lot. If they go dodgy instead of tanky, good dexterity and acrobatics, they'll be really hard to hit most of the time. On the other hand when you hit them they'll often feel it more than other exalts. I doesn't make them easier to take down though. They're really good at succeeding at dodge rolls. I have two in the party and it gets a little boring sometimes when they forget to stunt. They're not quite willing to go for that 4th power point, mostly expanding their skills. I've been starting to throw more and more stuff shooting or attacking every round them to try and keep them low on resource and pressure points. It works but it slows the game down a bit too. It doesn't help that, trained by years of modern style D&D, they don't really think of ding anything in fights but attacking all the time. Occasionally I get them to blow up important scenery by having an NPC use it against them, but that's just more attacking to deny the enemy assets. They don't try to do much with the scene. They're also deathly allergic to social situations for some reason. Mind flayers are causing them problems just by putting out press releases calling them allies. They just run away and wonder why people stop talking to them when the news catches up. Meh.

Culture wise they're elites. Whatever they're doing, they're lucky and at the top. Adapting the paragon, they could be engineered super soldiers. Or just totally supernaturally dumb lucky. Not too much to go on there. They're really pretty wedded to the stunting mechanic for powering their abilities. Although you could say their abilities are powered by the stunting mechanic. Same difference really.

[Telok]

Next up is Prometheans. Let's see how fast I can type this. For a professional computer guy I don't get to actually do non-work computer stuff very often. But during a 5 minute compile and 25 minute stress test I can get a decent bit of reading and writing done. Let's see what I wrote today.

"Made by the hands of mortals", 'I, Robot' here you come. Let's dream of some electric sheep. And get your mind out of the gutter while you're at it... Deviant.

Powers: Construct Immunities. Fatigue, poison,disease, eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping. Heart replaced by a pyros reactor so you can't benefit from a bionic heart (that includes artifact bionic hearts). The biggie there is the immunity to fatigue. It's actually quite useful as fatigue is a faux damage mechanic that bypasses hit points to KO you. Which is a nice way of modelling several things including the fact that unarmed combat really does tend to be generally non-lethal.
Refitting. No natural healing or spending resource points to heal. Instead its a craft+intelligence check, one hour per check, to repair one hit point or crit point. Target numbers from 15 to 25 depending on damage level. Destroyed limbs, body or head take 5 checks (and thus a minimum of 5 hours) to rebuild.
Built. Don;t use the crit charts (kinda a sad face, those are fun) but track crits to limbs, etc. At 5 crits they're destroyed and need to be rebuilt. You can only die if you get to 5 crits on your gizzards (hit location, 1/10 change ber aimed shots). Getting your head or body destroyed KOs you until someone repairs you. Sounds like you might want to invest in some friends.
Antisocial. Not actually the name of the power but its what I wrote down. -2k1 to all social rolls with non-exalts. Apparently other exalts are weird enough not to notice you acting a little off.

Resource, pyros, get three times your power stat and regenerate one point an hour. Simple, easy. Starts with less then anyone but a paragon, ties for second least amount with the chosen at max. Still, no actions required to recharge, no downsides, and not too bad for management.

Power stat, generation with a note that most promethians have to "return to the place they were born" to increase it. Back to the factory if you want upgrades buddy. Sounds like a good reason to get a ship and loyal crew with those backgrounds, then work them into your backstory as your birthplace. Although as DM I wouldn't actually make it hard to justify upgrading your generation stat anywhere with the appropriate level of magi-tech/mad inventors.
1. Integrated armor, armor equal to power stat plus three. You start with medium-light armor and end up with heavy (8 is heavy but there's extreme and power armor after that for more). Treat all armor proficiency feat buys in classes as optional.
2. Integrated weapons, gain power stat implanted and concealed weapons. Free action to 'draw' and can't be found with normal searches. "Say hello to my little rocket launcher!"
3. Transhuman Potential, Spend resource points to get extra points in you stats that last for one roll or until the end of the round, whichever is longer. I don't recall if there was a scene limit on that, but I wouldn't let them carry over from scene to scene. Notably there's no limit on which stats.
4. Recharge, regain resource equal to the wounds you take from energy weapons.
5. Warstrider, for once scene a day double your size, +3 all physical stats, and all integrated weapons do +1k1 damage. So... add one to three to resilience, six hit points, three static defense, +4k1 more to melee damage. Yup, war machine.

Looks, anything from normal to full RoboCop. Tells include go-go-Gadget and venting heat/plasma or steam. Becoming = building generally unique circumstance and invention and super-science. Usually person upgrade but maybe recently dead or whole made. Has a soul.

Well, some of that mostly made sense. Or most of it made some sort of sense.

Playing advice, promethians are usually a little weird or off. Animals can sense them as abnormal. Less afraid of bodily harm than most people ("just a flesh wound!", never more true than here). Often have backing from the people who built them.
DMing advice, they usually have ties to a group or they've gone rogue and their original build group is an enemy. Be sure to throw a mix of stuff at them for both their strengths (tough) and weaknesses (usually social abilities).
Culturally they're normally pretty tight with their creation culture but could be outcast/pariah like a walking nuke weapon.
Adaptation notes, you can run them as an undead or pure robot pretty easily.

Conclusion, tough and fighty. Has a social penalty, about -10 worth average-ish, but being able to throw +3k3 or more on a roll at power stat three can easily overcome that if you want. The 40%/50%/60% break points are 8k4 @ 32/34/37, 6k3 @ 24/25/27, 4k2 @ 16/17/18 and adding +3k3 to any of those is about equal to +20. Notably spell casting isn't "social" and it's not like these guys have any penalty to mental/social stats. For that matter since other exalts are probably your most serious opposition those social penalties don't apply there. Frankly I wouldn't apply them for dragons, daemons, and other full on monsters (who I may have added resource points/power stats to because the base daemon monster in the books is a bit on the weak side) either.

TLDR: Terminator, RoboCop, Ghost in the Shell, Short Circuit.

[Telok]

I should find my copy of Murphy's Rules, I'm sure some game statted small children as dungeon monsters or vermin or something.

Ah, vampires. With archetypes ranging from hideous monster to glittery emo chihuahua freak. Let's see what's been done to them.

"Horrors that drink blood", right so were going more for the Nosferatu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu) vibe here. Considered the weakest of the exalts (that's highly debatable) they also have a bigger resource pool and often an easier time refilling it (absolutely true).

Powers: Old money, 4 extra background points during character generation.
Undead resilience, as from the monster/npc section Immune to eating, breathing, sleeping, stunning, and blood loss. I think we forgot about the stun immunity a few times during the game. Write your immunities down on your character sheet! , plus not killed by crits unless it's energy damage, explosion damage, silver weapons, or magic (so really just immune to crit death via non-silver rending and impact damage). Non-killing death crits (uh, crist that should kill the character but don't because vamp) just knock the character out until they spend enough blood points to heal the damage to a non-deadly level.
Sunlight weakness, each round exposed to direct sunlight inflicts 1 wound of energy damage, all crits go to the body. Can be avoided by a heavy cloak and a wide hat, so we're really talking direct sun contact with the skin bits. Obviously a full body armor and helm or a void suit would work just as well. I'd file this as "not that much of a problem in most circumstances".
Blood dependent. Well that's sort of the defining characteristic of vampires isn't it? Let see, gain a 1k1 rending melee brawling bite attack (can brawling be ranged? are we just being completests here?) with which you may choose to draw blood (may?) and inflict a level of fatigue while regaining a blood point. Knocked out creatures can be bitten once more, safely. After that any draining kills them. Also you lose one blood point a day and go into a coma of you can't. Yes, other people may stuff blood into an unconscious vampire, it just needs to be fresh.

Resource stat: vitae, aka blood points. The gooey red stuff. It turns out that most people can tell what you're talking about pretty easily and that's good because I think this is part of where the 'one guy doing this on a dare' thing shows up in the proof reading. It swaps back and forth every so often in some places. But you get power stat x5, pretty much more than anyone else so far and with a higher cap than anyone else. Recovery was covered above.

Power stat: Blood potency. Whatever, as it goes up you get more 'dead guy walking around' looking.
1, Auspex, see in darkness and +1k0 to all perception tests. Simple, very useful.
2, Dread, spend a blood point to gain supernatural Fear 1 for a scene. That's a TN 15 willpower test of flee/stay away with a minor penalty for having to interact with the source of the fear and some unpleasantness if you fail by 5 or more. Just to note willpower 2 (2k2) has about 72% chance of failing, about 36% chance of it being by 5 or more. Willpower 3 (3k3) has a 34% chance of failing and a bit less than a 12% chance of failing by 5. Willpower 3 as a baseline for PCs, remember that (there are crit effects that are sufficiently gory to throw a fear 1 test, try not to be scared by your own kill shots).
3, Celerity, spend a blood point to gain an additional half action in a round. Heya, spend 2 to cast a spell, shoot someone, and take a full round total defence action. Nice way to set up some pretty serious combos with yourself. There are non-combat applications too, but lets be real, your players will never think of that.
4, Potency, spend a blood point to get +3 strength for a scene. I'm of the opinion that this one won't stack.
5, Dominate, as per the spell of the same name but you roll power stat (5) + charisma instead of a magic test. And no warp effects since it's not actually a spell... crap... Just noticed that there are no costs or limits. Well that puts it up there with the rest of the power 5 abilities, and it actually has real non-combat uses.

Physical, cute, "the worst doctor can usually tell if someone is dead". Much more mobile than most dead people though.
Tells, they vamp out.
Becoming, anyone can become a vamp, yadda yadda yadda. Sire, childe (note pretentious e), gunk from VtM games. There's a box text that outlines how to do it in play. It boils down to burning off a point of your power stat in exchange for an ally 1 background made out of whoever got bit. Can't do other exalts and non-sapiens. I doesn't explicitly say it but I'd nix other stuff without blood and other undead. So, vampire cyber-aboleth anyone? Alas the vampire t-rex is out unless you make it much smarter first. Wait... Aren't there cyber implants that... Well there's an 'add +1 Int' in the second book, but I'm unsure if I'd let straight intelligence boosts count unless they went higher.
Playing one, driven by hunger, animals won't do. "They have a strong nightlife". They make an excellent ship crew in the astral sea, no sun and they don't care much about the lack of life support. I mean, I'm sure it does a number on your hair and skin that'll take a gallon or two of moisturiser and conditioner to reverse...
DMing, makes it rare that the party will do anything during the day. Yeah, no. We got laser guns and magitech. A fire extinguisher and some spray foam insulation to quick patch your void suit and they're good. Add in quick-set epoxy and some thick rubber patches if you're feeling paranoid. "Even if it's mostly safe they prefer to work at night", that's more true because of the seeing in darkness bit than anything else. Seriously, schlumpy was wandering outside on Athas during the day fighting teleporting murder elephants that cast fireballs. They're fine. Just remember to bring the fire extinguisher.
Society, "closely resembles that of the classic image of the mafia". Cute. Reasonable too. Mention of dark space citadels in the astral sea where old, powerful vamps live.
Adaptation, "Unfortunately, Vampires are a rather specific exaltation." Yeah. Although it mentions an alien blood parasite and a succubus variant as possibilities.

My experience was that access to a medium-large spaceship crew with regular blood drives and monetary bonuses for donations pretty much alleviates the 'between away mission' issues and makes healing up pretty fast. The celerity power is strong, but vamps will burn through their resources fast with it. It also counts towards your 1/power stat resource use per round. Since that's also a limit on how many times you can dodge or parry (everyone starts with one reaction and exalts can spend resource during a round to gain more reactions, they're also used in multi-attacks) blowing everything on extra actions can be risky. The limit of 'can't take the same action twice' is very important there too. But that's all later in the combat section. Basically vamps have some strong options and a big resource pool but 1) it's hard to replenish in combat (that bite attack isn't anything special, it's brass knuckles level) and 2) it encourages them to burn through it fast. They can be pretty spectacular, but it tends to be short lived and leave them vulnerable afterwards. Although, the guy playing a vampire in our game isn't exactly known for restraint or long term planning. Someone more conservative can probably get a more steady burn or just throw down blood points only when they really need to.

[Telok]

Werewolves, our last exaltation. Big, hairy, screamy! Remember kids: Fur burns.

Let see, described as a blessing or a curse. Stable cultures usually see them as threats. Highly capable in melee. Pack oriented. The usual werewolf stuff.

Powers: Shifting, spend a resource point and take a full round action to turn into one of two forms. Wolf form is the basic shaggy dog story, +1k1 to scent perception, +2 dexterity, +1 size, and a 1k1 rending melee bite attack. Ok, seriously, this is the third bite attack option we've gotten. What gives with the mouthy bits? Vamp and were are reasonable, traditional even, but three different bite attacks? Anyways that translates into about +8 static defense, +2 meters move, and half the time a -1 resilence. It also doesn't say but there's a quadruped attribute in the monster section that ought to apply. It's just a movement multiplier for having more legs because usually that means those legs are built for speed. For number two is the warform, it's the big bitey movie werewolf. Beserk mode, may only advance and attack (you should probably be a bit lenient on that one, call it minimum one general aggressive half action each round? Otherwise it's really constricting). Can stay in warform for constitution+power stat rounds (I'd consider making that a minumum and upping the max to the entire scene, although there's no restriction about reentering it would take time and another resource point), get +2 strength size and constitution, 1k1 claws and 2k1 bite (MOAR BITEY!) that count as magic weapons, the Stuff of Nightmares monster trait, and any worn armor bursts and gets ruined doing armor points damage to you. No note on if that is before or after you adjust stats. So we're gatting +4 hp, +2 rounds of transform, -4 static defense, and +1 resilence out of this. Stuff of Nightmares is immunity to poison, disease, breathing, "most environmental hazards", bleeding, stunning, and any critical effect "other than one that would destroy them outright" unless the effect is caused be a spell, power weaon, or other "similarly unusual source". Some vague wording there, does decapitation by power fist count as 'destroyed outright'? While something like a sandsorm is definitely an environmental hazard... well no, raining acid and lava is probably not covered by 'most'.

Lycan resilence, gain non-stacking armor equal to your power stat in wolf/war forms (fairly trivial). Cannot be killed by crits unless it is from explosive, energy, silver, or magic (well I suppose that solves the power fist question, it's impact damage), instead you get knocked out until you regenerate all critical damage. You may spend resource points to heal in combat as a free action. It doesn't say exactly, but it's implied that this is all when wolf/war formed. This wasn't written with a mind to sentence fragment style rules parsing. Definitely some unaddressed edge cases and interpretations.

Spirit tongue, Free language proficency in 'spirit'. What, ghosts got their own language?

Silver bane, you count as half size for resisting damage from sivler weapons or ammo. My first impression is that this is just a -1 resilence... Ok, I threw the math into a spreadsheet for this. Between wolf and war form changing your size we have a range from 1 to 7, levels 1 to 5, and the resilence calculation with it's "divide by two-round up-add one" sequence. At size 1 there's no change, at 2 & 3 there's a -1 half the time depending on odd/even math, at 4 & 5 it's always -1, at 6 & 7 it's split -1 or -2 by the odd/even math. I'm really tempted to change that to a flat -1 resilence versus silver. Or maybe an additional size stat (or simpler just +5) in damage for silver hits.

Resource stat: Rage. Maximum of composure + willpower + level. Regain you power stat worth of rage at the start of each fight, or 1/night at moon rise (or local equivalent). That's... restrictive. You could try to game the per fight part, but a DM willing to let you do that would also consider other options.

Power stat: Feral heart.
1) Fast healing, when in wolf/war form heal one hit point a round or one crit an hour as long as it's not from explosive, energy, silver, or magic damage. Gotcha, keeping two interconected wound tracks going. Or tagging your injuries and regen Y/N. Nice but annoying sometimes, and why isn't it up with the lycan resilence or shapreshifting powers?
2) Spirit sight, see into the local spirit world with a power stat + wisdom roll, no target number given amature editor fail. See lingering magical auras and past important events. Well, a plot detector power with few or no defined edges. Possibly a way to detect active spells ala ShadowRun astral perception?
3) Quick shift, may shift to wolf/war forms as a half action instead of a full action. Quality of life ribbon power.
4) Sacred hunt, do aritual and then solo hunt a 'superlative' animal, kill it, taste it's heart blood, and... for two resource point you can transform into this instead of the wolf form... Right. Considering how limp the first three powers are, if you clobber a size 14 'superlative' giant land squid I will totally let you rock this with all the brokenness that is twelve 10m long tentacles and acid-ink squirting. Considering the Spelljammer-esque loose definition of 'animal' among the apheres this could get fun.
5) Spirit walk, power stat + willpower vs TN 20 to walk into the spirit world, may talk along a chain of hand holders. At will, no duration limits. Ok, so it's a get into-out of pretty much anywhere power. With maybe a 'look before you walk' in some places. As a note you'll have an absolute minimum of 6k5 whihc gives a 96% success rate. Although it did mention that it could be higher or lower under special circumstances.

Hnrrg. That's a bunch of loose ends and partial definitions.

Physical... They all have mithril and quicksilver tatoos? Heavy metal poisoning is normal for weres? I mean, they aren't immune to poison ouside of warform and they aren't getting tats in warform. Really, all of them? Any ways they don't all have to be wolves, other animals are fine. Cats, foxes, and dinosaurs are mentioned. Yes you can legit be a were-velociraptor, that's fine, the stats don't have to change for anything. Wolf form looks normalish, warform is obviously a monster,

Tells, you turn all furry. Or the tatoos start glowing a lot. Glowy fuzzball, sparkly vamp, "Ma! Fetch my flamer! There's some freak here what needs teaching."

Becoming, two ways to do it. First is being born. About a 25% chance for normal/were breeding, highly likely with were/were but prone to mental instability and beserk rages. Plot idea: government breeding program for furry super soldiers (mind control implants options), gotcha. The second way is that the goddess Luna just zaps you into a fur coat. Often in the middle of combat. Fickle b* god. On the other hand it sounds like she's got a way higher success rate with were exalts then the other gods have with chosen exalts.

Playing one. Creatures of instinct, but not animalistic. Adaptable, independent, multiple solutions to problems. Feel uncomfortable in confinement like spaceships, but they adapt and are fine. Uncomfortable in cities, but they adapt and are fine. Really? Adapt, adapt, adapt? Reasonable to be a dabbler in lots of things. Strong cultural idea that strength comes from multiple sources. With all that melee brute stuff though, they aren't really pointed at ranged combat, magic, or anything else. Definitely not aimed at being a social or technical character.

DMing for weres. Never unarmed (they aren't alone, ref atlantean-magic, daemonhost, promethian @ power 2+, vamp, and anyone who casts spells). Don't ignore the connection with the spirit world, although I'd note that it's pretty dependent on the player remembering they can do that too. The level 5 power makes them amazing infiltrators and escape artists. And I just realized that a 'superlative' mouse is a completely legit sacred hunt target. I presume that there's some level of inter-were teasing that accompanies that too. "Dude, a mouse? That must have been some epic hunt. What'd it do? Viciously nibble your toenail? You couldn't have gone for an elephant or something?"

Society, tribes. There's literally two sentences.

Adapting. Easy, other animals. Also possible is anything that can sort of 'battle mode' like a super soldier with bio-armor. Although I have no idea how you'd want to work wolf form into that.

In my experience these guys are the actual weakest exalt. The rage resource is slow to regenerate, unlike all (most?) of the others there's no way to get any back mid-fight, and you can burn through really easily. The player who went with this ended up generally using one point to warform, and couple two or three in fight, then another to wolf form in order to run off and regen. Warform has basically no extra defenses beyond a hit point per round regen and resistance to impact/rending crits. A power fist to the gut can still break 1d10 ribs and knock you out (cyber-yeti bodyguards on combat drugs are a thing in my game). You're pushed towards melee combat (there's no restriction on using weapons, just attacking and advancing) but aren't really any more special at it that someone who bought power armor and a phase sword. Actually I'm wondering if dog-shaped power armor and the bite equivalent of a power fist, the just ignore warform, would work pretty well.

They don't have any penalties, but then again neither do at least three other exalts, four when you consider that vamps can just use heavy makeup & clothing. Spirit sight is almost purely a plot power in addition to both player & dm having to remember it. Quick shift is literally the lamest of all the exalt power stat abilities. You could literally fold the level 1 & 3 powers into the base powers, put shifting + lycal resistance as the level 1 power, and it would not only be the same but it might read better too.

I know what we can do for the L3 power, regain a rage on crits and any time you lose 2+ hit points or resolve (remember resolve? social combat hit points. yeah, lose resolve = gain rage, sounds good). That way the regen can at least keep up with more than the occasional scratch. Also the lycan resistance armor value needs a boost. AP = character level is honestly crap. Let's do power stat + constitution and explicitly always on even when not shapeshifted, so we're looking at startig around 3 to 5 and getting a maximum of 10, +2 in warform. Frankly they need more resource points too, not a lot more, but more. Our max values run from 15 to 25, and starting is normally around 5. composure + willpower + 2x power stat would put them in line with atlanteans and daemonhosts, or instead of 2x power stat it could be level + power stat.

The other issue is that we have a bunch of loosely defined abilities here. Lycan resilience really reads like it should be only on while shapeshifted but it doesn't say that except for the armor and crit resistance, plus it is honestly a little weak for what it is supposed to represent. Energy damage isn't uncommon enough to make the crit resist an "oh wow" ability. As a minor spoiler the whole spirit world thing isn't developed hardly at all after this. I think there may be another two sentences hanging around outside the monster entry for ghosts.

All in all I think you need to be nice to your werewolves and make sure that they keep getting those resource points back. Once they hit power stat 4 and do a bit of smart sacred hunting (gorilla, bird, shark, giant land squid, etc.) I'd stop worrying. But frankly be the time people are hitting power stat 4 in your game they're usually really hard to kill anyways and have lots of power. It feels like outside of pure melee combat the werewolf is going to be much more reliant on class/feat choices than other exalts. And man, that power stat 3 ability is just... that should have been in the shapeshifting section all along (it can still be at power stat 3, but it's not a worthy power stat ability). If you do utterly nothing else you should replace it with an in-combat regen rage points mechanic.

[Endarire]

I read the rulebooks years ago but you're the first person I heard that ran this game!

(My sample character was an Aasimar fighter/paladin in power armor.)

I'm quite interested in learning more of your sessions! Where are your session logs?

[Telok]

The session logs are, sort of, in this forum section somewhere. The search function should find them. I think some/most ended up in a google doc. There should also be a link to the android app die roller/warp effects that I did. That thing is seriously useful for running the game (it's definitely still a beta version though, the text wipes on screen rotations).

I really need to stop binging on dwarf fortress and write the next bit of this.

[Telok]

After the last bit we have the DtD40k7e + sarcasm version of the Star Wars scene where Han gets hired to take some schlumps to Alderran. Eh.

Next up is the class chapter. There's lots of lists in here and I don't feel like typing any of that in. I'll note some high points, lessons learned, etc. But if you want to read the lists TVTropes has links to the PDFs and you can read them yourself. Seriously, we aren't here for a review or academic discussion, we're here for the commentary.
commentary...

commentary...


commentary...

Great. An echo.

Chapter starts with an intro page. Classes are packages that represent you character's training and work. It defines the powers and skills that you're focused on learning and improving. I suppose you could look at them as college courses, from remedial to masters then. They aren't your entire character or even necessarily your job, just your long term training path. The main thing classes do is restrict how you spend XP. You can (well, sorta, exceptions and all) only spend XP on the stats, skills, feats, sword schools, and magic schools in your current class. We have an editing error where the word 'feats' is left out somewhere. The feats are the meat of the class that give you most of your class abilities. You have to meet the prereqs for a class. You can only leave a class after buying all the required feats in the class. Once you leave you're in the new class and can't buy from your previous classes. Each class has a level and your character level is the level of your highest class.

There's an alphabetical list of classes with one line descriptions. Nearly useless except as a very broad overview except... They marked all the first level classes. That's semi-useful for building starting characters.

Leveling up and free study. There's a half page summary of basically all the class and in-class XP buying rules. That's nice and it's useful to read that after all the previous bits. It lays everything out in a concise and orderly format. Free study is what happens between classes. There's nothing saying that you must choose a new class immedately after finishing a class, and what would happen after you finish the fifth level of a class? Start anoth class path probably. But no, you can do some free study between classes. You can spend XP to buy optional feats from any classes you've finished, or raise skills, stats, magic, sword schools, gun kata (those are in the second book and I don't think they're mentioned anywhere else in this book, it's either an editing mistake or a teaser) from any of your previous classes. You can also buy up skills and attributes outside you classes at double the cost.

Before we hit the classes and tracks (I've been calling them paths, same difference) I wan tot note something. I mis-remembered part of this during a game early in our campaign, plus I wanted to throw the occasional off-class feat onto some NPCs (building NPCs as characters is optional but often useful, you can always just make crap up), so I've allowed off-class feats to be bought at double price while in free study. This has had some consequences. First, because of one feat, anyone can buy the first dot of a magic school that's out of clss for the same XP it costs in-class. That's not a real big deal, except that conjuration is really popular because it has a 40m LOS teleport at the first level. Second, when a human paragon character buys effectively Lay On Hands (runs off spending hero points) for 200xp they basically replace all other hit point healing unless you really push them into making lots of rerolls during a session. Third, there are a couple pretty strong feats that, depending on how you rule spending resource points while using them, obsolete some other feats. There are some feats the is probably is better if they're gated by the higher level class requirements. On the other hand I don't think that armor and weapon proficency should be amongst them, which they are by default. I think you can only get power armor proficency (memory, will come up later this chapter) through a couple classes and at 4th or 5th level. Which may or may not be a good thing. I don't think having power armor and proficency at 3ed level is bad, but as written you can only get that by being a gnome or tech-preist (second book, first level, the 'any' almost could be a typo). On the other hand it discourages artifact power armor at first level, which is probably a good thing. People who start their characters with artifact power armor are probably assuming that they always get to wear it. Which has backfired on them on occasion when they couldn't and they didn't have any other concept of not dying except by heavy armor.

Of course melta guns have armor penetration equal to power armors defense rating, and krak grenades and missiles aren't far behind.

Dodging is good until you run out of resource points (or points per pound) to use it. And there is actually a meaningful tradeoff in resilence vs. static defense. So starting with artifact power armor isn't a huge deal, but it's something. I still think it should come online about 3rd level though.

Any way, class tracks. Some classes naturally flow into others but you aren't limited to them, you can take any class you qualify for. Plus there are a few classes that don't appear on any track. Tracks have five classes each and are: assassin, barbarian, bard, cleric, fighter (hey, there's a class in there called 'Fight Guy'), guardsman (although the Stormtrooper class is perhaps a bit misnamed given current popular culture), magic user, paladin, and thief (ends in Stubjack, which a quick google tells me is a WH40K thing so there's no etymology of the word form).

Then we dive into the classes with... Rat Catcher!

Ahem, we start with level 1 classes that have no prerequsites. That are not, however, useless. particularly because if I recall correctly you can build a starting character that's already through them and ready to immedately be in another class at game start.

So, rat catcher. Nice traditional adventurer start, rat killing. Also a WHFRP call back. You know it actually helps if your at least familiar with the assorted games DtD40K7e is based on, you have a better feel for what's going on. And if you do play WHFRP the dog as actually rather useful in addition to (nearly) nobody ever questioning if a person like you should be somewhere odd. Feats include common sense, obtain familiar, and basic weepon proficency. You get +2 HP on finishing the class. Good: Wisdom vs 15 to ask the DM if you're doing something stupid and it gives the DM a mechanic behind "are you sure you want to do that?". basic weapon proficency covers all the most common melee and ranged weapons. Two more hit points is a more than decent exit bonus. Bad: Obtain familiar has no rules or guidelines attached. As a pro that means you don't get players coming up with pre-built familiars/mounts (it's used for the paladin mount thing too) trying to game an edge or having convinently forgotten that you said not to use something or to ask first. It causes the player to talk to you about their character instead of throwing down a stat block to game with. As a con there's no rules or guidelines. You have to make up the rules yourself or just wing it.

Scholar. Is actually pretty bad. Arguable the worst. Feats include eidetic memory, skill focus, and expanded knowledge. Exit bonus is a skill specialty in any skill. That's a perfect memory (depending on your DM style that can be good or bad), a specialty on each lore skill (can be different specialties), and two more specialties. You will get to reroll lots of 1s. Ah, the feat/class given specialties don't require 4 dots in a skill and you still get another specialty when you hit 4 dots in the skill. On the other hand there are no weapon or armor proficencies in the class. Good at knowing stuff tho.

Initiate. Skills are academing and fobidden lore, medic, craft. Thats it, possibly the shortest class skill list available. Feats total out at +1k0 on soclials with a religous organization, +1k0 to hit 'heretics'/favored enemy, basic weapon prof, divine ministration (lay on hands, spend a hero point for -1 fatugue & +1d5 HP by touch), and minor magic. Minor magic is one dot in any magic school you don't have any dots in. As a feat it's 100xp, buying the first dot in a magic school is usually 200xp. You may well save up to 800xp taking this before taking a another casting class if you're planning on not being a total specialist spell caseter. Oh, and you get a skill psecialization on the way out. This is actually a great class to take if you just want to add some low level magic and decent healing onto a character. As it has no magic schools in it you can't advance beyond the first dot in magic from here, but once you hit free study you can drop 800xp for the first dots in other 8 magic schools. As opposed to, you know, picking up at least two other classs (I don't think any one caster class gets all the schools) and spending another 1600xp to get there.

Mercenary. Pretty much the opposite of scholar? You'll come out with a total of light & medium armor prof, basic weapons, +3 HP, a new language, and +1k0 on soclia checks with menbers of a particular merc group (basically self defined or coop with the DM). Hey, perception and scrutiny are on the class list at least.

Peasant. You're common as dirt and about as remarkable too. Ok, feats in clude unremarkable, sound constitution (thats +1 HP each time you take it), luck (1/day reroll), and common sense. There is no bonus for completion. Why don't I consider this at the bottom instead of scholar? If you know that you're in for a good long game, and since most paragons tend to be rather difficult to kill, it has all attributes as in-class. As attributes are your kept dice this means that over the long term you can become a very well rounded character no matter what class you go into next. On the other hand, that really is a long term plan. On the gripping hand i think all the classes only give three attributes in-class and those generally stay the same through the whole track of classes.

And that's enough for now. We'll start in on the assassin track later.

[Telok]

Assassin classes track.

Starting wiht the level 1 Sell-Steel, prereqs are stealth 2 and weaponry or ballistics 2. Not exactly hard to qualify for but they'll both crank up to 5 at the end, generally equalling the level of the class. The in-class stats are dexterity, intelligence, and fellowship all the way through the track. In-class skills are the weapons, thiefy stuff, several socials, perception, and pilot. But not drive? That's odd. Any way, same skills all the way though the track. Two sword schools are in-class, shadow hand and setting sun. We'll get to what they do later but suffice it to say that you get to build your own ToB style maneuvers by spending xp, although it's bascially limited to attack maneuvers. The class completion bonus is +1 to initiative, that's the same throughout the track too (init = 1d10 + composure).

You have to take the improved feint feat, which is decent. Feinting is a half action that has you throw down an opposed weapons test. If you beat the target they don't get to dodge or parry. The feat has them take a -2k0 penalty even if they win the test. Plus the sneak attack feats work even if the situation doesn't normally qualify. Other than that it's just general dex sytle combat feats, no armor proficency, basic weapon prof required to take and optionally any other weapon prof. You also take two weapon fighting, opening up additional attacks if you take the multiattack action in combat. You'll usually want to take the ambidexterity asset/feat at character generation then too, although the penalty (minus one or two dice rolled) isn't horrible bad if you don't.

Level 2 is Nighthawk, pretty similar. Requires improved feint to get in. Has you take light armor prof any sneak attack. SA is just ignoring half the armor of an unaware target but you have improved feint. Interestingly SA is a feat that gets better the more armor something has, effectively a damage bonus dependent on the armor rating. Far shot (don't much care about range increments) OR furious assault (do an all out attack, no dodge or parry untill your next round, bonus to hit, and if you hit and wound you get a second attack at the same bonuses for free), so you're pushed to choose ranged or melee.

Level 3 and you're finally an actual Assassin, which requires you to know sneak attack. Backstab, bonus damage for ganging up on someone. Swift attack (as a multiattack make two melee attacks) OR deadeye shot (called shots at half penalty, -1k0 instead of -2k0). A run faster feat and quick draw.

level 4 Freeblade is more of the same and requires backstab and quick draw. You take a +2 damage melee OR ranged feat (whoop-de-poo, yes this is crap), immunity to non-supernatural fear. All this time you've been having to take a skill focus feat each level and have the option to take another skill focus and any weapon proficency.

level 5 Nihilator requires the skills at 5 each, the level 4 required feats plus luck and jaded. A couple damage bonus feats, interestingly you get improved backstab but not improved sneak attack in this class track. Counter attack, riposte when you successfully parry. Once a round free dodge, labelled as an extra reaction that can only be used to dodge, same effect. Assassin strike, which is kind of weirdly named. Once a turn when you make a melee attack you can also take a free move that doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity.

So thats a lightly armored kill stuff class. There is a definite preference for melee combat, it doesn't have as nice a selection of ranged combat feats. With all the skill focuses you'll probably be interested in having a bunch of skills, or you could try stacking them all on one skill and cover all the bases there. But since I've done the math earlier just rerolling 1s isn't amazingly powerful on average. On the other hand it's memorable and good to have in play since it provides to opportunity to turn a fail into a success. There isn't any feat support for it but the skills definitely support scouting and social roles too.

I'm going to skip around and do the thief track next. I want to see if there are any real break points where you can switch out after having followed one track pretty closely.

Thief track starts with Outcast as the level 1 class. Requires larceny 2 and stealth 2. In-class stats are dex, int, and fellowship again. Gets the shadow hand and diamond mind sword schools. Completion bonus is +1 static defense. Missing by 1 isn't common, but it's definitely not a waste either. Skills are the same as assassin at a quick scan, with the addition of tech-use. Still no drive, but they do get pilot. Weird.

Almost the same first level feats. improved feint, required weapon prof in melee2 (includes fencing weapons and something else I forget and won't bother to check) with optionals for basic (you want basic because you want guns at some point) and throwing, danger sense is literally 'never surprised' and is a pretty nice feat. ok, so after completing this you can skip right into nighthawk-assassin2 if the assassin track required combat skill isn't complete trash.

Level 2 is Outlaw, requires danger sense which assassin track classes don't get. Sneak attack, light armor prof, two weapon fighting, evasion (on a dodge may move dexterity in meters, not provoking AoO explicitly and only from the peron you dodged) and one (optionally two) skill focuses. I'll state it now that you get the required and optional skill focuses every level of this track, but no further weapon proficency options.

Level 3, Renegade, requires evasion, again no assassins allowed. Gives the same run faster feat and quick draw as assassin 3, also backstab, and weapon focus in fencing weapons (+1k0 attack). We're barely not a clone of the assassin track so far. however after finishing this you could switch over to assassin-assassin3 (the way I typed that seems redundant) as long as you have 3 dots in weaponry or ballistics.

Level 4, Rogue, requires sneak attack. So level 3 assassins can get into this if they also have larceny 4. Improved sneak attack ignores all armor on a feint or unaware target. Other than that the feat list is the same as freeblade-assassin4 without the weapon feats. Interestingly I think you can get into nihilator-assassin5 from here.

Level 5, Stubjack, requires improved sneak attack. Gives the 1/round free dodge, improved backstab, a small bonus damage feat, and fearless. Um, fearless is... interesting on this class. I wonder if there was a late edit that didn't get cross checked on the feat and which classes had it. Yes, you're immune to fear and pinning tests (there's a mechanic for keeping your head down under sustained full-auto suppressing fire), but it makes disengaging from combat or backing down froma fight rquire a willpower roll vs 15. Granted 15 isn't much, and by level 5 there's a possibility you've bought up your willpower (or not since it's not in the class stats) but unable to back down from a fight is odd on the thief chassis.

So there are a fair number of swap points between the two tracks as long as you keep a combat skill and larceny up to par. On the other hand you could literally add tech-use to the assassin track skill lists and stick a few more "A OR B" feat and prerequsite bits in to come out with a single track that has essentailly all the same options. They're nearly the same classes in a bunch of cases. Luckily I think that these may be the most closely related class tracks in the book, the others (I seem to recall) are all much more varied.

Interesting. I think, if I were doing a rogue type character, I'd take thief1, assassin2 & 3, thief 4, assassin 5. Danger sense, improved sneak attack, and tech-use is about all I think I'd want from the thief track that assassin doesn't have. Assassin1 and thief1 are pretty much the same, while assassin4 doesn't have much to recommend it in contrast to improved sneak attack.

[Telok]

I did a bit of a re-read and, man, there's a lot of typos in there.

Someone asked, a link to one of the threads that has links to the game log.
Here's the first thread, turned into the prototype game log and petered out. https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?570930-Dungeons-the-Dragoning-40k-7th-edition-Going-fishing
Here's a second thread, second to the last post has the log and app links. https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?601447-Athas-meets-Rogue-Trader-Exalted/page2

Now, back to the classes. The barbarian track.

L1, Feral. Requires weaponry 2 and athletics 1. Obviously we're a melee class. In-class stats are strength, charisma, and constitution. We're winning triathlons and body building contests here. Completion bonus is +1 to all melee damage. Well that's pretty crap. Sure, at 5th level its like ignoring a flak jacket, but it's also a really really small bonus. Sword schools are stone dragon, tiger claw, and desert wind. Don't assume that sword schools map directly to the D&D ToB schools that they're named after. There are some thematic similarities, but... Example, the desert wind school allows you to use maneuvers with called shots and Syrneth weapons. Spend 100xp to build a simple maneuver that ,as long as you didn't use it in the last round adds +2k0 to a called shot attack roll with any weapon type that you know a sword school for.

Any how, the requirements for weaponry and athletics will crank up by 1 each until at 5th level they're both 5. Also each level after the first requires the frenzy feat plus a feat from the previous level. Since nobody else gets frenzy on their class feat lists that means nobody can cross over into this class. Bleh.

In-class skills are general barbarian-ish skills plus drive. Not perception though. Weird. Barbarians have an easier time learning to drive than thieves or assassins. Wtf.

Feats are frenzy (full round to turn on, +1 strength & constitution, -2 intelligence & wisdom, must melee attack or advance, no parrying, lasts until the end of combat) which is pretty 'meh', danger sense (never surprised), light armor prof, power attack (take a number of rolled dice off your attack and add them to the rolled dice of damage, capped at your level), weapon prof any, and this and every level has an optional any weapon proficiency.

I'll be honest, that's a pretty mediocre first level. You're a melee combatant with a couple minor bonus feats to take. Plus driving. I still find it odd that thieves don't get that while barbarians do (although I fully admin that chariots and war wagons are a thing so it's not just that barbarians get it).

L2, savage, jaded, quick draw, +1k0 damage on a charge, +1k0 attack (weapon focus).
L3, rager, +2 melee damage, furious assault (all out attack that wounds gets an extra attack), swift attack (multiattack for two attacks), and medium armor prof.
L4, barbarian, the ability to parry during frenzy, true fearlessness, constitution check to resist stunning, and cleave (like D&D cleave, 1/round drop someone and make another attack).
L5, heavy armor prof, lightning attack (3x multiattack, does not stack with swift attack), +1 'wound' done when critting (upgrades a crit result by one point), and true grit -> "Whenever you suffer critical damage, you may halve the result (rounding up)". True grit is not well defined. Halve the damage taken, halve the wounds, halve the crit level, halve the effect of the crit... You know, given how naff this class track has been so far and that you have to have taken it all the way (wait check that) I'd say halve the crit level rounding up after determining the crit. That means that you can't take more than a crit 3, ruling out nearly all instant death crits. Because frankly this class track doesn't impress me at all.

Hrm. priest-cleric1 and gallant-paladin1 get powerful charge that's required for barbarian3, fight guy-fighter3 has crushing blow that's required for barbarian4, nobody gets battle rage required for barbarian5. So you can maybe get into the barbarian track from cleric, paladin, or fighter tracks if you've completed feral-barbarian1 first.

Let's check out the fighter track.

L1, Swordsman. Requires weaponry 2 and athletics 1, same as feral. Strength, constitution, and intelligence. That's different. Similar skills to barbarian except that they get perception, ballistics, and command in place of animal ken and acrobatics. Completion bonuses are +1 to-hit on all melee attacks. Well it's starting off better than the barbarian track. Sword schools are iron heart and white raven.

Feats, we're looking at any weapon prof (required at 1 & 2, optional every level after that), light armor with optional medium armor, power attack, and always counting as lightly wounded for healing purposes (heal HP faster even if you're really heavily wounded, may not matter depending on exalt).

L2, myrmidon, requires power attack, you can come in from barbarian1 here. Blind fighting, jaded, quick draw, medium armor prof required if you didn't pick it up last level, optional heavy armor prof, and the +1k0 attack weapon focus. Compared to barbarian you're getting heavier armor faster and can buy up ballistics.
L3, fight guy, yes that's a good description of you. Requires blind fighting and quick draw, you can't switch to this class from barbarian because they never get blind fighting. You can get into this from assassin3 or thief2 (get the feats at 1 but can't skip levels from 1 to 3) though if your weaponry is 4 and athletics is 3. Gives swift attack (the 2x melee multiattack), weapon specialization (+1k0 on damage rolls), crushing blow (the stupid flat +2 melee damage) OR crack shot which is crushing blow's ranged attack twin, optional heavy and extreme armor proficiency, and combat insight. Combat insight lets you use intelligence in place of dexterity for dodging, or in place of your level for the aim action. Now I need to check the aim action... Right, I remembered correctly, aim doesn't reference level at all. In fact it's completely independent of all character stats (1/2 action gives +1k0 to hit next attack, full action gives +2k0 to hit next attack, don't get interrupted because it's sub-typed 'concentration'). So here's another editing error, although it's in a feat and I ran across it in the class lists.
L4, fighter, requires swift attack and combat insight. Nobody other than fighter3 gets combat insight so there's no crossing into this class. Optional extreme armor proficiency, optional weapon focus, improved weapon focus for +0k1 on attack rolls, fearless, iron jaw (the Con vs. stunning feat), armor specialization (+2 to a category of armor), combat master (never outnumbered and never ganged up on, defeats back stab and a couple other things), and a 1/round free parry.
L5, master fight guy. What? Our thesaurus caught fire and we didn't go get another? Fine, master fight guy it is. Requires combat master which nobody else gets. Gives counter attack (riposte on a successful parry), true grit (half crit thingy), 1/round reroll a missed melee attack, the triple multiattack, improved weapon spec again, and optional weapon prof and specializations.

Well, you're a fighter. Good at it by 5th level, but still a fighter. You do have a use (if limited, but you can also use it in driving) for intelligence. You are tough, even more so on top of your exaltation. You could go barbarian 1, fighter 2 & 3, barbarian 4 & 5. I think that's probably the only continual level-up option between the two. Anything else and you have to go back and double up on first level classes to get frenzy from barbarian1.

Let's think about that Combat Insight feat, since I'll almost certainly not remember it when we get to feats (and having mostly hit feats in the classes that'll be a pretty fast skim). Intelligence for dexterity for dodging and intelligence for ?level? in something. Well parrying and feinting both use normal weapon tests which use level, or there's the disarm action which is a dexterity+weaponry opposed check that disarms if you beat the opponent by 10+ points / two raises (works pretty well against gun bunnies / brawlers who don't invest in weaponry skill). I think it should be parrying. That builds on the general melee competence and defense of the fighter track and when you get the feat it wouldn't be insane for you to have a 4 intelligence, particularly if you have access to necromancy or illusion magic through an exalt or exalt-asset combo.

Although going with replacing dexterity with intelligence for the disarm ability wouldn't be off either. In the lists of feats Combat Insight says that it replaces dexterity for some rolls without mentioning level. And you're already going to be good at parrying simply by virtue of the weaponry skill and your level. Heck make it both and it's still not an insane feat or anything.

Still nobody getting power armor proficiency, and I kind of think that maybe the fighter track could have common lore in it.

[Cluedrew]

I just wanted to pop in to say I'm really enjoying this look into... I was going to have a witty line describing the system but I think anyone who has gotten this far has figured out what this game is.

[Endarire]

What about the Atlantean exaltation?

[lightningcat]

I just wanted to pop in to say I'm really enjoying this look into... I was going to have a witty line describing the system but I think anyone who has gotten this far has figured out what this game is.

It is a April Fools joke taken way too far, and done with a straight face. It is also inspiration for all homebrew game designers to get their game out there. If this didn't exist, then I might not have done my own Transformers game.

[Telok]

I just wanted to pop in to say I'm really enjoying this look into... I was going to have a witty line describing the system but I think anyone who has gotten this far has figured out what this game is.
I believe that it was Glyphstone who referred to it as something like "Acid Trip: The RPG"
Edit: I mean, I statted a giant daemon sandcastle on the back of an ancient spaceship as transforming into a giant sand daemon-cowboy complete with six shooter and lasso to fight other spaceships with. The players chose the other path, but I still had it statted and ready to go.


What about the Atlantean exaltation?
It's up a ways nearer the beginning. First exaltation. Some exalts are tough, some are good at stuff, some are a bit of both. Atlantean falls into the 'good at stuff' category. Choose your sauce and awesome it.


It is a April Fools joke taken way too far, and done with a straight face. It is also inspiration for all homebrew game designers to get their game out there. If this didn't exist, then I might not have done my own Transformers game.
I'm... intrigued.

Tonight's update.

Bard track. I'm not going to compare this one to any others since I think it's pretty unique. Certainly a strong departure from the previous classes and still pretty different form the remainder.

L1, Minstrel. Requires charisma 3, common lore 3 and performer 1. That's our first stat requirement and generally higher requirements that the fighty classes so far. The performer requirement will go up every level while the charisma and common lore requirements will be at four at L3 and five by L5. In-class stats are charisma, fellowship, and dexterity. In-class skills are about half the mental skills, two (acrobat and larceny) physical skills, and all social skills but animal ken and intimidation. Let's be honest, you know going in here that you were going to get a lot of face time. Medic, arcana, and politics are interesting add-ons though.

You'll get access to two sword schools, white raven and diamond mind, and two magic schools, enchantment and illusion of course. Now diamond mind and enchantment fit nicely, being fencing weapon / feint focused and a charisma based magic school. White raven and illusion will be a little more difficult. White raven natively wants to use cavalry weapons and charging actions (but it can use the command skill which is probably why its in here), but you won't get proficiency in cavalry weapons so you'll need to take diamond mind in order to apply maneuvers to the weapons you know. Illusion uses the intelligence attribute, which isn't in-class here and thus is quite costly to raise without dipping somewhere else.

The class completion bonus is something special though, a free rank in a skill that's lower than your current level. So on completing your first level you're getting the first rank in a skill you don't have. That's basically 500 to 600 xp worth of skills you're grabbing. Plus I'm pretty sure that it's not limited to your in-class skill list because it's probably the only way you're getting a combat skill up on this path.

Feats: speak a new language, luck (1/day reroll), jack of all trades (nice), peer (+2k0 charm, command, and persuade with a group), and weapon prof melee-2.

JoAT says, essentially, that you have at least one virtual rank in all skills. The wordy way is that you treat all skills as basic (ignore trained only requirements) and get +1k0 when rolling a skill you have no ranks in. The groups for peer are nice wide things like 'government', 'military', 'dwarves', 'criminals', and its a two die bonus too which can be a 20+ percent increase to hit target numbers at some points. Like, 3k3 to 5k3 on TN 20 goes from 37% to 72%, although that is one of the biggest increase points. The melee-2 group is fencing weapons, parrying weapons, and unarmed combat weapons. You're proficient with phase swords and power fists at first level.

Not a bad start.

L2, bard, requires enchantment or illusion at 1. I'll note here that this class path doesn't get the tested feat, so you're an unsanctioned sorcerer (the warhammer people know where this is going). That means that when you screw the pooch on a casting roll you have a much better chance of a spectacular death with collateral damage. It also tends to mean that after your first public display of casting the local law enforcement gets all shoot-to-kill-no-questions-asked if you can't prove that you're sanctioned.
You get to learn another language (actually that's every single level in this path, you'll end up knowing at least 7), become a peer of a different group, catfall, light armor prof, and a skill focus. Skill focus is a required feat every level from now on, like the languages. You're going to be good at a bunch skills if we have to shove them down your throat.

L3, skald, requires... A disgusting interruption of real life.

The next day...

L3, skald, requires enchantment or illusion 2, plus your ever increasing skill & stat requirement. In exchange you get another language, peer group, skill focus, +1k0 to hit with fencing weapons, and immunity to alcohol and drugs. No other class gets decadence, so this is your last chance to opt in from another class if you really want L4 and L5 for some reason. Which turns out to mean that if you picked up performer 3 at character generation you could sneak in from the magic user track L2 class.

L4, swashbuckler, requires decadence (the immunity one form last level) and speaking 5+ languages in addition to last level's crap, Well that's gonna put a crimp in the magic users trying to advance here. You get fearless (again, being unable to back down from a fight without a willpower roll is a little odd for the class track). another skill focus, spell focus (+1k0 to magic tests in a particular school), and good reputation. Good rep is just the +0k1 version of peer and you can only take it for a group you have peer for.

L5, master bard, requires charisma 5, performer 5, common lore 5, enchantment or illusion 3, fearless, decadent, and good reputation. For which you can take... speak language, skill focus, +1 HP, +1k0 to hearing perception, and a speciality in all the lore skills you have ranks in. Which are academic and common lore if you're staying with in-class skills.

Who do I punch for this travesty of utter...

After 5 levels, quite possibly around 3650xp... You are an OK enchanter, above average in some skills, probably quite good at most social stuff, very good at some social things with certain groups, and that's it. You aren't a death blender murder machine. You aren't telling reality to sit down and take orders. You're a charming linguist/performer. Sure, you can dump all your skill focuses into medic, politics, or tech-use and be really solid at most aspects of those. Without high composure, willpower, and wisdom you won't be a social combat god. You'll be quite good to excellent at some of it, mostly the offensive part, but not all of it.

That master bark.. bard... feat list is just crap. Replace the heightened senses with armor of contempt (can't be forced to go against alignment in social combat), sound constitution with improved feint or improvisational magic (spend a hero point to cast any spell from any school that is lower than the level of your highest magic school), skill focus with minor magic or mental fortress (screw with mind reading magic automatically), just, just, just... Good feats! Not this one die on hearing tests and another language stuff!

Grumble.

On the other hand I realized how the combat insight feat works. Intelligence for dexterity for dodging is simple. The other bit should read 'when you take the Aim action, on the attack that benefits from it you may use your intelligence in place of your level'. So instead of rolling level+skill & keep skill, you roll intelligence+skill & keep skill. Good at low levels, less impressive at high levels. And just checked, only the L3 fight-guy class gets it. You need intelligence 4 to get any use out of it at that level. So looking back at the fight-guy stuff I still say let it replace dexterity for disarms. At least this way it's simpler to understand, simpler to use, and doesn't get worse as you level up.

[Telok]

After the utter disappointment of the bard track classes lets see what's next. Ah, the cleric track.

L1, Priest. requires academic lore 2 and forbidden lore 2. Those will eventually end up as five point requirements. In class attributes are willpower, wisdom, and composure. Skills, medic, arcana, the two lores, weaponry, intimidate, persuade, and command. Not too bad, if a little limited. The completion bonus at each level is +1 HP.

Feats, pure faith (+2 on alignment checks, since those are 1d10 trying to roll over devotion a pretty decent bonus), powerful charge, hatred of heretics, light armor prof, basic weapon prof, optional melee1 weapon prof, and tested. Tested is a casting feat, clerics are casters, fits. It makes casting a bit safer by cutting the warp crapola roll "bonus" (if you keep 10s on a magic power test you roll on the warp crap table) from +10 per kept 10+ die to +5 per kept 10+ die. It also cuts you down from being able to overcast by 4 dice to being able to overcast by 3 dice. I think that cutting the tested overcasting down to two dice would be a bit better because, if you aren't terrible at approximating probabilities, going with that +5/die and not overcasting as much is pretty good. Of course in our game the guy who was the worst at gauging probability was the caster and like to overcast because it was "exciting". Yeah, that eventually killed him twice. Took a while though and he had fun doing it.

Oh, and obviously there's access to magic schools, Abjuration, Divination, Healing, Necromancy, Transmutation.

L2, preacher, required one rank in healing or abjuration. You can get in here fro the initiate base class and skip that troublesome tested feat if you feel that it limits you too much. Feats, peer, spell focus (if you succeed at casting a spell you get +5 on the result), +1 HP, medium armor prof, optional any weapon prof, and Virgil's guidance (buying devotion costs 1/2 xp).

L3, cleric, requires healing or abjuration at 2. Feats, divine ministration (lay on hands), true grit (1/2 crits, early considering the warrior types didn't get it until 4 or 5), another spell focus, optional weapon focus, and channel energy. Channel energy is touch someone and spend up to your level in resource points to heal or harm them, one resource to one hit point. Touching an opponent in combat would require a brawling attack.

L4, zealot, requires one of the two magic schools at 3. Feats, heavy armor prof, good reputation for your religion, +1 HP, optional skill focus, greater spell focus (same as spell focus but stacks), and absolution. Absolution is interesting, touch someone, spend a hero point, remove any one ongoing effect. With the caveat that stuff from gods, higher level exalts, and similar entities may be resistant to removal.

L5, bishop, requires the two skills at 5 and one of the two magic schools at 4. Feats, fearless (characters in this class are almost certainly going to breeze past the DC 15 willpower test to not get into all the fights), armor of contempt (can never be forced to go against your alignment), greater spell focus, and purge the unclean. Purge is spend a hero point and choose an opponent that "represents the foe of your diety" (warp creatures, daemonhosts, and other chosen exalts "almost always count" and you know before spending the hero point if someone counts) and make an opposed willpower test. On winning "target is repelled a distance of meters away equal to twice your willpower" and can't approach for 1d10 rounds. Or perhaps for ever if you repel them off a cliff.

Wear heavy armor, weild a decent selection of weapons, +7 HP for taking all five classes, you have some straight up healing power, a fairly flexible rebuking power, and you're a caster. Granted healing and abjuration don't sound like power house magic schools, but healing has some offensive spells in it (rebuke, holy weapon) and abjuration has shield (use a casting test to parry instead of a weapon test), dispel magic, and exploding runes. Seriously, if you can't have fun with exploding runes they you just aren't trying.

All in all a solid caster. You're biggest issue will be that magic schools are expensive and you want several. Plus it's gonna cost you to raise ballistics and brawling if you don't want to be in melee.

[The Glyphstone]

Someone, somewhere, has Purged an enemy into the intake nozzle of a starship engine. Maybe one of your players.

[Telok]

Someone, somewhere, has Purged an enemy into the intake nozzle of a starship engine. Maybe one of your players.

Not my players. They got to 3rd level classes and then started to diversify instead of going for higher power. Granted, they tend to run away from a lot of problems.

On to the update!

Ah, the shooty dude classes, the guardsman track. Not as shooty as the second book classes, but still shooty.

L1, conscript. Requires ballistics 2 and athlete 1, at least one of them increases each level up to 5/5 at L5. In-class attributes are strength, dexterity, and willpower. Skills, ooh, short list. Perception, athlete, drive, ballistics, weaponry, command, pilot. Drive, fight, see, yell at subordinates. Simple. Oh, and access to the Iron Heart sword school. Bonus for completing each class is +1 on ranged attacks.

Feats: +1 HP, optional +1 HP, light armor, any weapon proficiency, quick draw and jaded.

L2, guardsman, requires quick draw and sound constitution. Feats: +1 HP, optional +1 HP (wait, those two are every single level of this class track, you're going to end up with +5 to +10 HP here), double tap (multi-attack for shooting), +2 ranged damage, far shot (no penalty for shooting at long range, does NOT make meltaguns shoot farther, that's what rocket launchers are for), medium armor, any weapon proficiency, optional any weapon proficiency.


L3, sergeant, requires crack shot (the +2 damage), and far shot. Feats: more HP, hip shooting (d&d shot on the run, as a full action move twice your speed and take one shot anywhere along there), fast reflexes (reroll initiative), dead eye shot (1/2 penalty of called shots), weapon focus (+1k0 attack), optional heavy armor and weapon proficiency.

L4, grenadier, requires dead eye shot (assassin3 qualifies). Feats: more HP, fearless, iron jaw, armor specialization (+2 armor with chosen type), hard target (when running or charging additional +2k0 on ballistic attacks at you), any weapon proficiency, optional weapon focus and extreme armor proficiency.

L5, stormtrooper, requires dead eye shot and iron jaw. Feats: moar HP!, true grit (1/2 crits), sharpshooter (zero penalty for called shots), fan the hammer (multi-attack up to clip size or the number of reactions you can get, so a maximum of 7 rounds but you won't be able to spend resource/dodge/parry/reactions until next round), optional weapon proficiency and power armor proficiency.

Congratulations Mr. Shooty McShooter you've finished the shooty shoot shooting classes. Go shoot something. Although the 500 to 1000 xp spent on more and more hit points is going to make you a bit tougher than you'd otherwise look.

I feel like making an encounter with four or five stormtroopers now. I think that only the player who has been in the guardsman track will catch that it's a squad of level five elite shooters. I should not have them fan the hammer on twf-ed hand flamers, 30 dex saves is too many for people who won't use dice roller apps. Ah, no it's single weapon limited any ways. I guess fanning bolt pistols and grenade launchers at them would do. Plus we're looking at exalts to get the needed resource points to fuel it, so there's what, 20 HP each before we reach crit territory? Maybe three stormtroopers.

Next up is the all powerful wizard class! Fomenting pages upon pages of discussion in the general gaming section. It's a good thing we don't care about balance here. Although I still think the bard track classes need a boost.

L1, apprentice. Requires academic lore 2 and arcana 3, like all tracks those will get up to 5s. Class attributes are intelligence, charisma, and willpower. I think charisma is on there because it powers the evocation school, not because all wizards are charming and likeable people. If you want to up wisdom for the divination spells you'll either pay double or dip another class somewhere. In-class skills are another short list, the lore skills, arcana, scrutiny, and deceive. Apparently the ability to lie with a straight face is important to wizarding. Considering that "burn the witch!" is a perfectly appropriate reaction to loose spell casters, that's not too far fetched. Class completion bonuses are +1 on spell casting checks. Sorry, "focus power tests". Same !@#$ difference.

You get access to 6 of the 9 spell schools: no healing, no transmutation, no enchantment. Huh, I guess that means that bard track classes are the only access to the enchantment school outside of the atlantean and daemonhost exaltations. Unless you just want one dot in it, then initiate for the minor magic feat can nab that.

Feats: obtain familiar or implement focus (pro tip: there are no rules on the familiars, using an implement with the feat feat lets you reroll one die on every casting test which is a very good thing), eidetic memory (make the DM repeat all the clues because you can't take notes), foresight (spend 10 minutes thinking to get +5 on an intelligence test... illusions and necromancy are intelligence based... that might be better than I thought), spell might (take +2k0 on the casting check to get +10 on the result if you succeed in casting the spell), optionally tested (warp risk drops from +10 per kept ten to +5 per kept ten) and ordinary weapon proficiency.

WP(ordinary) is special because ordinary isn't one of the proficiency groupings. Basic includes ordinary melee and ranged, plus unarmed, las guns, and primitive ranged weapons. On the other squad automatic weapons (light machine guns), daiklaves, and power swords are classified as ordinary. You aren't exactly hurting here.

Ok, having double checked there's a subtle but important difference between spell might, (greater) spell focus, and (greater) spell penetration. All three only work if you successfully cast the spell. Then spell might adds +10. Spell focus adds +5/+10 for determining the effect of the spell, because stuff like mage armor gives more armor the higher your casting roll is. Spell penetration adds +5/+10 for the purposes of people making saves versus your spells. The necromancy spell Torment allows an arcana+constitution save vs. the casting roll or lose half your remaining hit points.

L2, aspirant, requires foresight and two magics at 1 rank each. If you're coming from apprentice that's another 400xp on top of the 4 to 6 feats that you had to buy. But you can't get here through initiate because apprentice is the only class that has foresight.

Feats: spell book (learn a spell in one of your magic schools up to the level you can cast, default you only learn one spell for each rank in a school), spell focus (+5 effect in a school after successfully casting), improvisational magic (this is a real power house feat, spend a hero point to cast any spell of a rank lower than you highest magic school but you still use the usual skill check), strong minded (1/scene reroll a failed willpower check versus a magic effect), wizard tradition (minor bonus rider effect on a school of magic), optionally tested (can't take this more than once) and skill focus in a lore skill.

L3, magic user, requires spell focus and any two magics at rank 2 (200xp). You can get in here from priest 2 (or bard 4 I guess) if you have the magic ability.

Feats: spell book, spell penetration (functionally -5 to a target's save vs the chosen spell school), wizard tradition, touch spell specialization (some spells are ranged attacks, level+ballistics, some spells are ranged touch, ballistics+dexterity, some are melee, level+brawling, the feat gives you +2k0 which is good because ballistics and brawling aren't on you class skill list), optional tested and another skill focus in a lore.

L4, sorcerer, requires spell focus, one magic at 3, and two at 2. If you're keeping track that'll set you back another 500xp from the requirements of the last level. It's likely that at this point you notice that you're gaining levels more slowly than other class tracks. But you can still get into this from priest 3 or bard 4.

Feats: spell book, greater spell focus (stacks on top of a spell focus), mental fortress (nope & deceive all mind reading attempts, I have no idea where this comes from), wizard tradition, and another optional lore skill focus.

L5, master sorcerer (did someone trademark wizard or archmage or something?), requires spell penetration (only wizard 4 gets this feat), one magic at 4 and two magics at 3. Buying up the magic is another 700xp on top of the feats for the last level.

Feats: spell book, greater spell penetration (stacks on top of your spell penetration choice), optional lore skill focus, spell mastery (choose a 3rd or lower spell, you can reroll the casting check once a round), archmage tradition (two options, choose one, nearby allies get a +5 to cast the same spell you just cast this round OR spend a hero point and your just cast spell repeats next round with the same choices and casting roll as this casting).

So straight wizarding is all the feats (usually 4/level, one has 5 and you probably do want tested) plus another 1800xp for something like 4000xp to complete the track, not including any skill, power stat, and attributes you want/need to raise. Although, having checked, you can save I think 500xp by taking the daemonhost or atlantean exalt (or vamp/were with particular a asset-feat bought at chargen), taking the initiate base class, going into priest 2 (one of your magics needs to be healing or abjuration), then straight wizard after that. A bonus of that is that all your mental and social attributes will have been in-class and you have free study access to all magic schools except enchantment (unless that's you daemonhost/atlantean choice) after level 3. However, you'll miss out on improvisational magic.

You can get through the cleric track for 3200xp with only healing or abjuration magics, 3000xp if you pick up the first rank from your exalt. While that's faster (and you can make one heck of a sniper with divination magics) and tankier (true grit, +5 hp, armor), you don't have anywhere near the breadth of magic capability.

[Telok]

Last class track in this book, the paladin classes. Lets see what a knight in shining armor looks like in this game. Ignoring for a moment that you can totally go with a chosen paladin of Malal, Khorne, or Nurgle.

L1, Gallant. Requires weaponry 2 and forbidden lore 2. In class attributes are willpower, wisdom, and constitution. Skills, medic, academic, forbidden, arcana, weaponry, intimidate, persuade, command. Looks like a melee leader with a splat of knowledge... Right, arcana because its used in saving against spells. I think animal ken or drive, plus ballistics should be on the list too, but that's just a personal thought. The completion bonus for each class is +1 armor points while wearing armor. Hen, at level 5 that would put heavy leathers or a quilted vest on par with full plate or storm carapace. Not too bad a reward. Sword schools for white raven, devoted spirit, and stone dragon. More of a ToB crusader than a PH paladin.

Feats: pure faith (+2 alignment checks), +1 hp, powerful charge, hatred of heretics, light armor proficiency, melee 1 proficiency.

L2, protector, requires pure faith (can get in from priest 1). Gives +1 hp, medium armor, optional weapon proficiency, guardian (parry an attack on someone else within your melee reach and to take the damage instead of them), divine bond (full action summon an undefined 'steed' for 24 hours, if it dies you can't summon it again for 3 days), divine grace (may use charisma in place of willpower to resist "enemy or environmental effects", would be better if you had charisma as an in-class attribute).

So, seriously, divine bond has literally no guidance or anything on the 'steed'. When I used an npc paladin I just up-armored a 'ferocious creature' from the bestiary and called it an armored riding tiger. Honestly it was a touch under powered with 3rd level characters on the board, not too surprising considering it's listed as a level 2 creature and exalts (npcs too) are a cut above normal threats. I'd say using the base ferocious creature stats at this level is ok, but up the critter a touch every level or by level 4 it's going to be a D&D standard horse in a 15th level encounter. You know the type, where the best thing you can do is duck behind and use it as cover from someone's quickened twinned chained disintegrate. Optionally since you're using the second book (you are, really) give them a 50 or 100 point vehicle to summon and up the points 25 or 50 each level. Ah, build the vehicle yourself with player input. Don't worry, we'll get there eventually. Just, it can be like letting someone build a 350 point Champions character with no limits, there are stop signs for DM permission on some of the powers for a reason.

L3, defender, requires guardian and divine bond (no cross-classing in). Gives +1 hp, true grit, optional heavy armor, optional weapon focus, swift attack, divine ministration (hero point to lay on hands).

L4, paladin, requires divine ministration (initiate & cleric 3). Gives +2 hp (yeah sound constitution is on there twice, separated by another feat), optional extreme armor proficiency, optional skill focus, good reputation with your religion, wall of steel (free parry), blade master (reroll 1 attack/round). The official bad a** weapon user level.

L5, chevalier, requires wall of steel (fighter 4). Gives +1 hp, armor specialization (+2 ap one type), fearless, optional power armor proficiency, armor of contempt (social resistance), and death before defeat (spend a hero point to ignore a non-lethal crit, something that like 2, no 4 exalts have something similar or better).

So, +6 hp, +5 AP melee bad as**ry, any armor but limited weapons, a steed without rules, a bit of damage mitigation, and some access to social skills. This has a few questionable choices, weirdly cross track accessible at level 4 & 5, and a bit lacking beyond hitting things with a stick. Goes really well on a human paragon though because they get +3 hero points and several abilities require them, plus it makes death before dishonour actually useful. Personally add a couple more skills and change constitution to charisma for the in class attributes, maybe throw a social feat or two in beyond the peer/good reputation as optional or as an OR choice on divine bond and a sound constitution.

Now, I played around with character building a bit and came out with a decent (ok, rather optimized) starting character plus later class plan. Lots of options, lots of survival. Gnome Daemonhost, will 4, con 5, comp 1, wis 3, dex 2, fel 1, int 3 or 2, str 2(3), cha 2 or 3. Academic 3 forbidden 3, arcana 4, ballistic 3, drive 1, pilot 1, weaponry 1, craft 1, scrutiny 1, persuade 1, deceive 1, charm 1. Inheritance 4, wealth 2 or 3, other background 2 or 1. Feats/assets/hindrances before class: gnome (power armor prof, basic weapon prof), gifted (str, dex, con), sand, sturdy, veteran of the wheel, sloth, ailing, night terrors (drop these last two hindrances if it offends your RP, I'm iffy about including them myself), grim servant of death, high falutin', intolerance, slow. Equipment choice Void plus inheritance of power armor and a cyberwear/bionics from book 2, machinator array. Starting class initiate and take all four feats then level into preacher (cleric 2) and take two feats (or not if you skipped ailing and night terrors). Your magic schools are healing and anything else (I like conjuration but taking enchantment as your daemonhost pick is nice too). This is a starting character. 8 resource, 19(17) static defence, 6(7) resilience, 18 or 19 hit points. Level 3 will be magic user (wizard 3) and then cleric (cleric 3, for True Grit plus you already have some of the feats from initiate), then paladin 4 & 5. At level 3 all attributes will be in-class (the gifted feat gets the last 3) and you have free study access to all magic schools except enchantment (unless that's your daemonhost pick). Because of initiate you can grab paladin 4 before cleric 3 if you want to buy your power stat up to 4. While this starts off strong it is a long term build, magic is expensive and you'll want to buy up wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Luckily you only have to have 2 ranks in two magic schools if you don't want to go further down that road (I like divination), plus I guess you could skip magic user if you don't want tested and the rest of the magic schools. I guess we should revisit this character after the feat chapter, the assets and hindrances are a big part of the fast start here.

[Yaktan]

So, after reading this thread, I went and dug into the system to make a character based off of a character from some of my favorite books.

Basically, the plan is a secret agent type of character, with a focus on social combat power, but able to help in a fight as long as nothing too scary tries killing him. I discovered in the second book that there are classes to facilitate this.

Here is what I came up with:
Gnome Paragon

Start Deputy for some combat skill, then jump over to the Courier track to focus on winning social, etc stuff. Some of the feats in the courier line are perfect for a hyper, hyper-intelligent super spy, like "Just as planned."

The point blank gun kata seems cool--use your kata on full auto!

[Telok]

As 3 or 4 dots in a combat skill are sufficent and you can get those at character generation being respectable in combat is more about weapon/armor proficiency and additional combat boosting feats.

If you're using book2 you can nab the gnome's any/any weap/ac feats plus a peice of cyberwear by going through the first level of tech-priest. That frees you up to be any race.

An xp pricey way to get general combat competence is via magic. Abjuration gets you armor, aura, and replaces parrys. Conjuration or divination to replace dodge. Conjuration, necromancy, or evocation to replace attacks. Plus optionally enchantment to make enemies fight for you.

[QuadraticGish]

I know someone who has thought about running the game; would you happen to have any advice for first time DMs and players for the system?

[Telok]

Urg. There's a fair few bits that aren't really clear. I'll try a quickie rith now, some of our more memorable ones.

Print outs. There are some ok summaries. I've written summaries of some stuff that should be in the google docs, tell me if it isn't. Stunting is one page, social combat is two, grappling works fine and is a column and a half on one page.

Fear will come up, fail by enough and you need the shock/insanity bit. I need to do a summary for those. Know how good your players are at RPing their own derangements and insanities. Those are a part of the constraints on overcasting spells, you an be totally immune to fear and the warp will still f* up your mind.

Unless you have chosen exalts or want it as a theme you can mostly ignore or go light on alignment. I called for tests twice in over a year of almost weekly games. You can just use it for massive screw ups once in a while.

Try to get them to put some thought into bachgrounds. Wealth 5 can hit 30 about half? the time but what it is will affect how they can use it. Do they own 49% stock in all major shipping lines? Is it a hammer-space pants pocket full of unobtanium coins? Did Tzeench just happen to drop his debit card near them? Do they have a backdoor hack into the Sigil banking networks? This is especially important with allies, backing, and contacts.

Combat. Use minions, they work and you can rep them on the map with dice. When doing any multiattack all the extra attacks cost a reaction each. Everyone gets one reaction. Exalts can use resource points to get more reactions. [b]You can only spend your power stat in resource points each round[/]. Any dodge or parry also uses a reaction. So multiattack competes with your dodge/parry abilities.

Each combat round you get 1 reaction, 2 half actions or 1 full action, and one free opportunity attack. That's before feats modify things. Have enemies stunt. Realize the critters with resources should also have the relevant power stat and abilities, they usually need it. Also, have non-trash enemies stunt occasionally. It reminds the players they can do it.

Very first fight I opened shooting a pc in the face with a frag rocket at 200 meters. It ended with 5 first level characters murderizing a level 3 halfling swordmaster and about 30(five groups) rating 2 minions. They suffered minor hit point loss and got a rocket launcher + officers sword out of it.

I like statting big creatures as living vehicles. Be aware of the flying vehice drawback of on-damage test control or start falling, else everything will be vtol/antigrav all the way. There is missing detail and some odd spots in the vehicle rules. Missile count/ammo, ramming people and dodging that, etc.

Space combat works fine. Out of combat it's individuals rolling or else they crowd source like 15+ dice into navigation and such. They'll be fine using their own skills and stats. If they really need crew to do something out of combat treat them as minions using crew quality rating as kept dice for group efferts and roll (2 x crew quality)k(crew quality) for stuff. Also put as many obstacles into space combat as possible, a couple moving ones are good too. Open space combat is boring, in crowded space they might forget to have anyone pilot and ram into an asteroid. Close also gives melee dummies something to do leading/repulsing boarding actions.

Werewolves need some love. Covered that earlier. The DM needs a dice roller app. Get a scatter die too, grenades. Maybe make a wire/something template for flamers and suppressing fire.

I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have.

[lightningcat]

You know Telok, I have seen this situation before. You are accidentally setting yourself up to do a Revised version of Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6. Which I, of course, eagerly await. 😄

[Telok]

You know Telok, I have seen this situation before. You are accidentally setting yourself up to do a Revised version of Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6. Which I, of course, eagerly await. 😄

Ohh heck no.

At most I might write a "Mr T. erratas DtD40k7e with a hammer." skit sort of thing. Because mining old A-Team episodes for quotes could be fun.

[Telok]

I've spent three evenings writing a little program to calculate all possible class progressions straight from 1 to 5, not accounting for skills or characteristics. It's working except that I haven't implemented the magic schools and language requirements yet. There's probably better ways to spend my time, but I like doing this. So, while my computer copies and converts cds to mp3s for a musical nightlight, I'll start on the foots.

Ok, feats. I've covered the class feats in doing the classes, I'll scan through to see if there are any that just amaze or horrify me enough to comment on again. Then it's assets, race, and exalt feats. Although, page 117 is one of the inter chapter fluff pieces that is particularly worth reading. If you're a Tolkien fan or hater.

Feat groups, stuff like Peer(foo) or Weapon Proficiency(bar), you can take multiple times (ref: bard) but you need to take it with different groups. You choose if it says 'any' or choose/invent a relevant group if it says something like 'mercenaries'. Then two whole honking pages of listed summaries with a tiny note at the end of the first page about the ones marked with asterisks. Those you can take more than once. I think that's the only place where it says which ones you can take more than once. Next page, descriptions of the feat groups, two sentences on how to read a feat, and the start of the feat descriptions.

Types:
Racial feats: can be bought at any time, even after character generation, always count ad being in-class (always 100xp each). Assets: can only be bought at character generation and you can take them all if you can find a way to afford it. Exalt Assets: can only be taken at character generation and you can only ever have one, except for paragon exalts who can take more than one of the paragon ones. Hindrances: get a problem for more xp, you can take all of them if you really want to. Neither required or necessarily balanced. Take them now because you can totally gain an Enemy in play but you won't get bonus xp except form the assassins and hit squads.

Armor proficiency: If you aren't proficient then you take the armor value (armor points, AP) as a penalty to static defense. With proficiency in light and medium armor you take no penalties. In heavy, extreme, and power armor you take half of the armor's AP static defense penalty. It's worded annoyingly and I needed to carefully cross check the equipment section to work everything out. Unfortunately it also skips the fact that some armors are set up a pieces that build up to a full set (arms, legs, torso, helm). I just go with the heaviest piece you're wearing, because adding them up gets silly. Also we're not in 'round to the detriment of the players' territory like some games. So 7/2 -> 3.

Channel Energy: Obsoletes healing magic.
Divine Bond: I believe that I griped about this earlier. Needs info or guidance.
Divine Ministration: Accessible with a quick trip through Initiate. With paragons in the group that have this feat if they end the session with unspent hero points you can generally just assume that they begin the next session fully healed.
Fan The Hammer: Use grenade launchers.
Fearless: This is frenzied berserker type fear immunity, there needs to be something other than Jaded and this for people who are immune to fear but not nutty aggressive. As it is this gets given out in classes that the willpower check or start/stay in a fight just clashes with.
Hardy: Only matters if there's no real access to magical healing. Although it is very useful when that's true.
Improvisational Magic: "I am so awesome that I can cast spells I don't know." Beware: Throwing 4k4 trying to fireball someone on pure charisma and no evocation skill is an invitation to warp crap happening to you.
Obtain Familiar:" Same issue as divine bond.
True Grit: Pretty much half damage once you're out of hit points. Very nice.
Wizard Traditions: If you absolutely have to put this on a npc go with the Storm Walker option. Everything else is too fiddly and annoying. If a pc has it then they have to remember it and it's effects.

Racial feats: every race gets two. The second book has another one for everyone and three or four for the races it introduces.
Celestial Wrath [Aasimar] - once a scene add charisma as rolled dice to a damage roll.
Dark Cruelty [Dark Eldarin] - +1k1 intimidation and charm. Good.
Dragon Sight [Dragonborn] - see in darkness plus a 1/scene perception reroll.
Eureka! [Gnome] - 1/scene replace any one check with a craft check. Any check. Any.
Halfling Agility [Halfling] - +4 static defense, essentially ignore your already minor size penalty.
Human Perseverance [Human] - +1 on opposed rolls, utter crap 99.99% of the time.
Mobbing Up [Ork] - on failing a fear check you can retreat towards an ally, once there you can stop fleeing.
Squat Armor Proficiency [Squat] - "Halve the proficiency penalty for all Armor." Not well worded, but I'd say half all static defense penalties for all armor. Because we're talking at most a +4 for proficient wearing of power armor (although it cuts the non-proficient penalty from -14 to -7). I can't really think of another way to interpret it that isn't terribly underwhelming.
Squat Stability [Squat] - ignore forced movement and knocking prone. Really really good. Especially because I like the evocation spell Defenestration and it's ability to chuck people through walls.

Assets:
Academy: +2 weapon proficiencies.
Ambidextrous: see combat chapter, otherwise what it says on the tin.
Androgynous: pass for any gender and +5 on disguise checks.
Appearance: +2k0 on social rolls you can leverage your looks on.
Brave: reroll fear checks, keep the reroll.
Dangerous Beauty: +1k1 on seduction attempts (so for 300xp at this point a dark eldarin can have +4k2 on seduction above and beyond their 3+ charm skill and 4 charisma stat. "Slay the dragon, lay the dragon, same difference. I'm rolling 10k7 and re-rolling 1s. I got this."
Driven: faux hero point that can only be used in situations of overwhelming odds.
Education: free specialities in lore skills equal to your starting intelligence.
Eagle Eyes: half distance penalties for visual perception checks. Except that nowhere are the penalties detailed, so DM choice penalties.
Fast: +2 faux dexterity for movement speed as long as you wear no or light armor.
Gifted: Quote - "Choose Physical, Social, Mental, Power, Finesse, or Resilience. You may raise stats of this type no matter what class you are in."
Left Handed: -2k0 for people to parry your melee attacks.
Level Headed: switch initiative with the person immediately ahead of you.
Linguist: +2 languages.
Magic Resistance: the target number for all spells targeting you goes up by 5. All spells.
Nerves o' Steel: you can choose to not run if you fail a fear check. All other penalties apply.
Nine Lives: Lose this asset instead of burning a hero point to survive certain death. Depends on the campaign and DM. And the player. Probably a good choice for casters.
Sand: take 2 more fatigue before falling unconscious. All characters should take this if they're seeing significant combat or casting spells. It's that good.
Spirit Mentor: Ill defined. Quote - "You have a ghostly companion and guide. The identity and exact powers of this spirit are up to the SM, but it can be called upon in difficult situations for help and guidance."
Sturdy: +1 resilience. Excellent if you plan on taking damage and living to talk about it. Recall, damage roll -> subtract armor (less the armor penetration of the attack) -> divide by resilience & round all fractions down -> # of wounds -> HP loss OR crit table. Because on a 18 damage hit the difference between "Chunks of the target's flesh are ripped free by the force of the attack, leaving large weeping wounds. The target is stunned for one round, takes 1d10 levels of fatigue, and is now suffering blood loss." and "Pieces of the target's body fly in all directions as he is torn into giblets by the attack." can be if your resilience is 4 or 5.
Tough as Nails: Totally useless or so situational as to be the same thing. If you are at full hit points the most critical damage you can take is 1. A 1 constitution, 1 willpower, 1st level halfling character has to take 18+ damage for this to matter. A 2 constitution, 2 willpower, 1st level elf has to take 40+ damage for this to matter. A 5 constitution, 4 willpower, 2nd level gnome daemonhost with specific gear has to take a 126 damage hit from a meltagun for this feat to be worth anything. And it doesn't work if you've taken a single HP of damage. Useless as far as I'm concerned.
Veteran o' the Wheel: Probably worth it to most people but I can see it being DM and player dependent. +1 characteristic & +1 skill. Then, quote - "The SM
should assign your hero a few haunting reminders of his past. It might be as simple as an additional hindrance, like an Enemy or some hideous scar. More often, the price is much higher. Give your SM a good background so whatever he comes up with fits your hero and makes him a more interesting character." If you write backstory and are can trust the DM I'd say absolutely take it.

You know what, I'll skip the exalt assets for now. Let's do hindrances.
Hindrances: Bought at character generation for more xp or earned during play for no xp.
Ailin': Constitution vs. 15 or take -2k0 to everything. Roll at the beginning of each session. Problematic, 4k4 has a 12% failure rate and you can spend a hero point for a reroll to bring it down to 1.44%.
All Thumbs: -1k0 to use or repair machinery. Double the xp cost to buy scientific or mechanical skills. Just which skills those are is undefined. Probably tech-use, sometimes craft, sometimes academic lore. Urgh. Do not like. The -1k0 is fine. Heck crank it up to +2k0 and just double cost to buy ranks in tech-use. Easier to run that.
Bad Luck: Can't use hero points to reroll tests.
Big Britches: Severe overconfidence and never turn down a challenge.
Clueless: Ill defined, role-playing based, no mechanics.
Deathwish: Quote - "your character wants to die for some reason (dark or otherwise), but only under certain circumstances." No mechanics but I'm ok with that. You'll need to define the deathwish and when DMing I'd make sure it cam up once in a while. Exalts are generally hard to kill any ways.
Enemy: The second most fun one. Work with the DM/player. I'm personally a fan of the halfing mafia having a hit out on you.
Geezer: -2 HP and can't run.
Grim Servant O' Death: The fun one. Quote - "If the SM is looking for someone's lap to drop trouble into, you are the designated target." My players are all cowards, they won't even look at this one. I'd take it.
High-Falutin': -1k0 to social rolls to those beneath your social station.
Illiterate: 200xp to buy off.
Impulsive: Ill defined, role-playing based, no mechanics.
Intolerance: Well defined, role-playing based, no mechanics.
Kid: 200xp to buy off. Role-playing based, no mechanics. Also mentions a "Small" hindrance/asset that doesn't exist.
Law o' the Stars: Fairly typical code of honor thing. Role-playing based, no mechanics.
Loco: Begin play with a minor derangement.
Night Terrors: Each night make a fear (willpower) test vs 20, gain a level of fatigue on failure. Do not allow on promethians. Also not only does 4k4r1 only fail about 20% of the time but fatigue heals/fades at 1/hour as long as you can rest or relax. Although having any fatigue does impose a +1k0 to all rolls.
Slowpoke: 1/2 dexterity for purposes of calculating speed.
Ugly as Sin: -1k0 social rolls where looks can count, although probably not to intimidation.
Vengeful: Ill defined, role-playing based, no mechanics.
Wanted: Dead or alive by a significant portion of law enforcement across the crystal spheres. Includes bounty hunters. No mechanics.
Wimpy: -1 resilience. Bad, do not take. See Sturdy.

[Telok]

Urgh, I messed up a number of +/- signs in that last post. Well, if something should penalize you subtract dice. Shouldn't be difficult to tell.

Now, I thought about it and realized something. I'm not thrilled with the purely RP hinderinces, that's probably obvious (if it wasn't this is your official notice). But it's not because purely RP things are inherently bad, they aren't. Purely RP restrictions are bad for some players, they are not bad design just a mis-match between design intent and some players/DMs who aren't dialed in to the same wavelength.

See, about half my group could do the RP restrictions just fine. The other half really really need something mechanical to hang stuff off of. One player, give him something like "If you see a daemon make a willpower check versus 20 or else immedately start hypocondriac cleaning everything for 1d5 hours. Make it and you put off the cleaning spree untill after the scene ends." then he's fine. That works for him, there's a mechanic to back up the phobia. He'll actually take precautions and actions like someone with a phobia of daemons. Well, at least someone with a healthy and rational respect for high power supernatural death dealers. For him thats like having a phobia. On the other hand tell him "Your character has gone totally psycho insane. Kill everything as fast and hard as possible." and he'll stop using cover or conserving ammo but still try to heal allies. Without a mechanic to work with there's nothing for him to hold on to, he can't conceive of how to change his normal behavior without some guidance.

So I like it when these RP things are backed up by a mechanic, and it needs to be a mechanic the player can remember and implement. -1k0 or -2k0 with all technology and double xp cost on a skill or two is fine. -1k0 dealing socially with your inferiors is fine. The vague "you're a vengful person" doesn't work with some people. Give it a composure vs. 25 to not instantly duel, challenge, or just flat out attack anyone who insults you in any way. That works.

Crud. I am going to have to do an errata document aren't I?

[Telok]

Exalt assets: Atlanteans - from Exalted castes.
Dawn - Spend a resource point for anything and for the rest of the scene get +2k0 to intimidation and weaponry. No self stacking. "I are Mr. Scary Smitey!"
Zenith - Sane spend to activate as above for reducing damage taken by your power stat until the end of the round. Ergh. End of the round? Initiative dependent damage reduction on par with light armor at level 5 and 5 power stat. Well it's sort of a free rider kind of thing but... At least until the start of your next turn. C'mon people.
Twilight - Spend a resource point to add your power stat as rolled dice to parry and dodge. Not great at early levels, pretty rocking at later levels but power stat is expensive to raise. We're talking 600xp to get to power stat 3, 600xp more to 4 and 800xp to 5.
Wensleydale - My cat is a cheese whore.
Night - Spend a resource point and nobody can tell where the your next spell came from. D&D 5e subtle spell printed in 2011.
Eclipse - Ooh, create a binding oath by spending resource points. If broken they fail at a 'critical moment', repeat for the number of resource points spent plus your power stat. Nice. If you let it happen as a reaction to something someone says you could kind of weaponize it. Definitely intended as out of combat though. Like.

Chosen assets: Bloody heck, there's one per god. Ok, here goes and then it's over for the night.
Acererak - don't need to eat, breathe, sleep.
Bahamut - +5 some social checks.
Corelleon - reroll 1s on any roll you used resource points on, not bad.
Cuthbert - +5 to hit people you've seen commit crimes (seen, no time limit? disguises? mistakes? yes, smitey mistakes, good).
Khorne - spend 2 resource to get a free basic attack when charging or all out attacking, never learn magic, have any 1 sword school always in class (throw in a free rank in that sword school, needs it).
Luna - spend a resource + hero point to duplicate the effect of any other mark for a scene, the ultimate "I couldn't decide which one I liked" choice.
Malal - +1k1 damage attacking allies and neutrals, great incentive the team-killing f*tard to get AoE weapons and perform friendly fire. I know in StarFinder my operative is all "just chuck grenades at me, I'll be fine" but that's dex whore evasion & DR talking plus the fact that grenades in that game are total crap. Actually the basic frags aren't that amazing here, but they'll at least take down unarmed civilians.
Moradin - +5 weaponry to parry attacks form people of greater size than you.
Nurgle - ignore crit effects until it meets or exceeds your power stat. Very yummy late game, weak early game, power stat is expensive, several other exalts give you a similar effect for free. Overall unimpressed to middling ok.
Pelor - you're a living glow-stick at will and 1/game session shoot a plasma pistol bolt out your orifice.
Raven - anything you send to crit 5 is dead unless it burns a hero point. Bypasses several 'hard to kill' effects, notable imapct and rending damage on a vampire/werewolf used as an example. I'm thinking modrons and liches myself.
Slaanesh - spend a resource point to alter your appearance for a scene, optionally +2k0 to seduction attempts. Quick disguise.
Sigmar - +0k1 damage to people whose last action hurt an ally of yours.
Tzeentch - warp crap happens to other people. [i][b]THE[\i][\b] caster asset, hands down winner tonight.
Vectron - once per scene regain one resource point by loudly praising Vectron for something that just happened. Free action scene limited recharge.

[Telok]

Looking at the previous post, well, its a mixed bag. Dawn, eclipse, luna, tzeench, all good and strong. Then you get zenith, sigmar, malal, all pretty weak. Well ok, malal is 'strong' in that it's basically two feats if you're hurting neutrals an allies. Still. Dawn, eclipse, luna, tzeench.

Daemonhost assets: There are seven deadly sins right? We're missing a couple.
Desire: Sense emotions, roll power stat + charisma vs. mental defense to scan thoughts, if you get raises equal to targets willpower you get the answer to a question. Regain a resource point if tempt someone into an act of lust.
Hunger: Feed on a corpse (raw, less than an hour dead) OR get someone to do something for material gain that they normally wouldn't do to regain a resource point.
Pride: +5 opposed tests, +5 to hit people ganging up on you, and if you beat someone at something they think they're good at you regain a resource point. Cheating is ok. This is pretty nice, opposed tests are reasonably common.
Rage: You can have your attacks do energy damage, regain a resource point when you provoke someone to violence when they normally wouldn't fight. So, no reward for taunting the orks. Rather weak, energy damage isn't that hard to come by and daemonhosts have a decent resource regeneration process any ways.
Sloth: +2 HP and regain a resource point by getting someone to not take action when they normally would. Half priced Sound Constitution.

I like that all of these encourage the use of the social combat mechanics. They're mostly pretty good too. What are we missing, envy and greed?

Paragon assets: The only ones that you can have multiples of. Still only available at character creation though.
Action Hero: Regain a resource point at the start of a combat.
Extra Action: +2 resource points.
High Pressure: +Level in extra pressure points. Meh, But I can sort of see it.
Legendary Trait: Any one characteristic is always in-class and you can raise it to 6. This asset can be taken multiple times, different characteristics.

Well they aren't bad. Your resource points are level + power stat, so that +2 is pretty nice to start off with and it raises your max from 10 to 12. Plus paragons don't have easy access to resource point refreshing except through stunting which doesn't always work. Pressure is three times your power stat, so I can see that one being ok even if it starts out weak. Legendary trait is... iffy to me. If I were throwing together a paragon caster with an emphasis on one casting stat, or an insane dex whore halfling than taking it on one stat is ok. But you're really taking it for the 'to 6' part and that's going to run you 500xp. So you're paying 100xp up front and another 500xp later for one more point [i]if you start the game with a 5 stat[\i]. If you aren't starting that high it's going to take even longer to get the stat to the point where the asset does it's thing.

[Cluedrew]

Now, I thought about it and realized something. I'm not thrilled with the purely RP hinderinces, that's probably obvious (if it wasn't this is your official notice). But it's not because purely RP things are inherently bad, they aren't. Purely RP restrictions are bad for some players, they are not bad design just a mis-match between design intent and some players/DMs who aren't dialed in to the same wavelength.The highest word count thread I have ever participated in was about this topic. Opinions varied from "any social or personality is inherently worse than free form" to "if it is significant it should have mechanical weight". Going into that much detail would of course derail this thread.

Anyways still enjoying the look into this glorious heap of mechanics ideas that shouldn't go together.

[Yaktan]

Yeah, that is one of the things that really appeals to me about Mutants and Mastermind's design philosophy--you do not get character generation resources for taking flaws, but rather you get resources in play when they come up. Though it does seem more common to use the get immediate payout like we see here in Dungeons the Dragoning

Looking forward to the magic chapter. I was looking at spells, but without experience with the system, it is hard to judge them.

[Telok]

I can see both sides of each of those.

For the mechanics vs. rp part I'm in favour of at least a minimal mechanical impact just because my group has people who need that in order to <something> so that they can/will rp it. I really don't have anything better than that. Just, in my group there are people who need a mechanic to go with the rp.

I suppose that you could rework the hindrances to be reward-in-play based rather than bonus starting xp, but I'd be a bit hesitant to do it since I've seen how things play at my table. My issue would be what the reward was, a resource point, reroll, session xp, or a bonus on a roll?
Other than werewolves the resource points are pretty decently balanced against each other and with their recharge mechanics. I wouldn't really want to mess with those, increasing the recharge rate could be problematic.

Rerolls are basically a hero point (or limited to mid/high level feats with a narrow focus), and they're limited because they're both powerful and they slow down the game a bit (dice roller apps help a lot though). One reason that human paragon is a strong choice is because of those three extra hero points.

Session xp could be done, but it's hard to balance and too easily negated without a highly structured xp reward system (guess what this game doesn't have?). You don't want enable xp farming by stacking intolerance(food service employees), ugly as sin, loco(tourette's syndrome), and impulsive to create scenes in every fast food joint in Sigil. Likewise without that rigorous xp system you risk DMs just dropping overall rewards to slow things back to the speed they want.

A bonus on a roll is just sort of a free feat with an rp prerequisite, which we already have with stuff like peer(vectron believers) and hatred(heretics).

It wouldn't be impossible but I think you'd have to do a lot of work to get it right.
Ok, last bit of exalt assets.

Promethian assets: What metal you're mostly made of give you a benefit if you spend xp for it.
Orchablumlumrumum: When you spend resource to boost rolls for each 2 resource add +0k1, and the transhuman potential buff adds another +1 to it's stat boosts. So this one only comes online at level 2, and you need to be particular to start with a beginning character that's completed a 1st level class.
Mithril: Spend a resource point to preform a full round action as a half action. Self haste.
Darksteel: Your integrated armor is doubled but you have an armor max dex 3 limit. Ah, the armor maximum dexterity limit is for your effective dexterity for dodging, speed calculation, and fast movement type stuff.
Wraithbone: As a free action you can spend a resource point to heal a hit point. Slightly better than getting the resource-to-hp ability back that you would otherwise loose for being a promethian.
Necrodermis: Spend a resource point to get a fear rating equal to you power stat for the rest of the scene. Fear is willpower versus 10+(5 x rating), with enough checks it can have you roll on the shock table and possibly gain insanity (nobody has ever failed a fear test that badly though, just a few shock rolls). Mind that a non-combatant with 2 willpower fails fear 1 (dc 15) about 72% of the time, and fail by 10 or more 36% of the time. Basically fear 1 will stampede a stadium full of people.

Wampy assets: From VtM.
Bru-bru: If you fail a social roll on someone you get +2k0 damage when hitting them. Hilarious when weaponized.
Malkavian: Begin play with a minor derangement but don't become an insane NPC at 100 insanity. Continue gaining a derangement every 20 insanity after 100. A long term spell caster benny as a number of warp effects automatically add insanity and there's no way, in the current rules, to reduce it.
Toreador: Get +0k(power stat) on craft and performance rolls. A rather limited social buff that also makes you weirdly good at repairing things. Just odd.
Tremere: Get a free dot in necromancy, necromancy is always in class, and add +1k1 to necromancy casting rolls. A nice casting ability boost at first level.
Ventrue: Get the feat Peer(Ventrue) and +10 on all wealth tests. You dirty, rich, bugger you.

Woof Woof: From Wt... whatever.
Black spiral dancer: +1k1 claw & bite damage in war form but you have to make a willpower vs. 20 to tell friend from foe in war form. You have a button labeled "berserk killing machine" on your character sheet, right? Willpower 3 has a 63% fail rate, 4 has a 31% fail rate, 5 only has a 10% fail rate.
Get of fenris: spend a resource point for +1 strength, athletics, and acrobatics until the end of the scene. Move one meter faster, jump a bit farther, fall a little farther safely, dodge a little better, and +1k0 melee/brawl damage.
Iron masters: You always count as being in free study for spending xp. Underwhelming.
Red talon: -2k0 social rolls with 'humanoids' but in wolf form can talk to animals and use social skills on them.
Silent strider: Get a free dot in transmutation magic, +1k1 for casting transmutation spells, and it's always in-class.

All the promethians are decent. Toreador is weird, unless you can go out of your way to do a lot of performance or craft rolls in which case it's pretty good? Maybe? Malkavian won't pay off for a long time, possibly never if you're in any way cautious with your casting (the guy who went caster on us never cast fettered spells and often overcast). Rather unimpressed with the werewolf assets except for silent strider. Werewolves are already limited in war form (must advance/melee attack, only con+2+power stat rounds) so I can sort of see black spiral, but it's really a minor boost and makes you a lone front liner. So that's a bit 'meh'. The other three just aren't strong enough for me to care about them.

Then we end the feats chapter with another one page fluff piece that pretty well illustrates the act of burning a hero point to survive certain death.

I'm thinking of adding in the spells from book 2 while going through the magic chapter. It won't make a huge difference, as book 2 only added one spell per magic school per level. I've also realized that out table has been running things wrong in several subtle ways, making casting both safer and more dangerous at the same time. Of course since the players who cast spells can't be arsed to read the rules any ways I'm too broken up about it.

[Telok]

Right-o, magic. We'll get to the overpowered-ness of sword schools after this.

Some fluff bits, although "There are many that believe sorcerers represent a gross perversion of the natural order, and a constant reminder of the terrible powers of the warp. This idea has led to sorcerers often being kept tightly under control, with most races having a government-controlled organization in place to control and train those with magical ability." Which is useful to keep in mind. There's a bit about types of sorcerers, astropaths, sanctioned, navigators, apostates, and untouchables. However there is also zero implementation of these types in the game, aside from the existence of the tested feat. So I'm forced to assume that this is pretty much more fluff/setting/ideas than anything else. A "magical ability" section talks about five trails to get tested. Nice if you want to roleplay through taking the tested feat (take it and rp or get is as a reward for a rather arduous rp arc, either/or).

Then the actual casting of spells. Getting a warp phenomena doesn't mean that you casting has failed (often the opposite actually). Three ways of casting a spell, fettered, unfettered, and pushing it. Fettered you get half your normal number of rolled dice (which can reduce the number of kept dice some times) but you can't invoke the perils of the warp. Can't is can't, this is the safe caster option. Unfettered is rolling normally. Pushing it automatically invokes the perils of the warp but you get extra dice rolled. sanctioned/tested casters get up to 3 more dice, unsanctioned get up to four more dice. This does mean that your effective magic school rating can go 6 or higher but it notes that if you have more than one source of increases to you magic school rating that only the highest one applies.

Warp funsies:

Fettered casting, half the rolled dice (and of course no more kept dice than rolled dice) and no warp effects. Its not too hard to start with 6k5 (daemonhost/atlantean for magic 1 & getting the casting stat to 5 OR vamp/were at stat 4 and using necromancy or transmutation) which would drop to 3k3 which puts you at about a 66% success rate for your first level DC 15 spell.

Unfettered casting, roll normally. Normally is magic school + stat, keep stat. If you get any 10s you have a choice to make. Ditch the exploding die and possibly not make the cast, or keep the exploding die. If you keep one die you may as well keep them all. Sanctioned/tested sorcerers roll on the psychic phenomena table if they keep an exploded die. Unsanctioned, without the tested feat, you roll on the table at +5 per level of the spell.

Pushing your casting means that you just flat out roll on the table while casting. Sanctioned roll at +5 per additional die, maxxed at 3 dice for +15. Unsanctioned roll at +10 per die, maxxed at 4 dice.

So this is interesting, it's one of the places that my group has been doing wrong. Well, wrong-ish. We've done +5/+10 per kept exploding die on regular casting and +5/+10 per pushed die AND +5/+10 per kept explosion. So our costing has been significantly more dangerous as a 4 die push with 3 kept 10s results in a +70 on the warp effects roll. Now there's two d100 tables, psychic phenomena and perils of the warp, in the book. You roll with whatever modifier you have on the phenomena table and if you roll 75+ you roll on the second table. For the longest time (actually we kinda still do) we applied the same modifier to the second table, the perils of the warp. It's the perils of the warp table that has the nasty stuff on it. The phenomena table tops out at 1d5 hit points of damage, a point of insanity, testing versus fear 2 (willpower vs. 20), being thrown 1d10 meters into the air, or frying nearby electronics and jamming weapons. The perils table has such light-hearted effects as everyone within 3d10 meters swapping places with random other people, or not being able to cast for an hour. Those are the safest effects, double ought is just straight up sucked into the warp and destroyed. So naturally +70 was pretty much instant death when run that way. We've also run it as casting doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, which it should. I should note that the guy at our table who was the main caster 1) freaking loved the warp effects, and 2) never read any of the magic stuff except certain parts of the spells. This was evident when he finally told me, after his character hit 100 insanity and got turned into a table (long story), that he'd told me his kept exploded dice were one per 10 on ANY die he'd rolled and kept. Thus a roll where he'd had two 20+ dice he'd told me had 4 exploded dice for a +40 instead of a +20.

So. Officially. Unfettered keeping exploded dice is a +0 roll for warp crap if tested, +5/spell level if untested. Pushing is +5/extra die if tested, +10/extra die if untested. Which means that an untested caster pushing a spell by a single die is 'safer' if the spell is 3rd level or higher if you're expecting to keep exploded dice.

For our game I've written a warp effects roller. Because enough rolls on the tables in the books was getting repetitive (25 and 18 entries). This roller and the associated tables was built on the assumption that you were adding the +# per exploded die and/or +# per pushed die AND +# per exploded die. There are 4 tables in increasing severity. The first has 50 entries, with one being roll twice (second roll at no modifier) and another being roll on the next table with -10 on the modifier (minimum +0). The second table is slightly more dangerous than the first but has the same number of entries and the same last two lines. The third table only have 37 entries, same last two again. The last, and the only table with actual flat-out death on it, has 35 entries of which 3 are actual instant death, one is the roll twice, and 6 are "Roll 1d10. If the roll is less than 8 roll twice on the preceding table, on 8 to 10:" with the 8 to 10 roll being hideous, gorey, spaltter-punk, instant death with side effects. Since everything is percentiles and you need three 99+ rolls with a -10 on future rolls you need to have rolled quite high several times in a row just to get onto the instant death table. Actually, let me do the math now... on a +0 roll there's a 0.0009% change to get to the instant death table versus 0.25% of instant death by the book... and I'm definitely making mistakes on trying that at +20 so I'm probably making some mistakes on the +0 one as well. Eh, it's late. Suffice it to say that the multi-table roller is overall less instantly deadly and has more variety.

Details, details. Stuff from multiple spells don't stack, only the highest applies. You need line of sight or to otherwise be aware of the target as well as to be in range, invisibility won't save you if they can see your footsteps. Anyone with casting ability can make an arcana + wisdom vs. 20 to detect magic and determine the source. When you gain a dot of a magic school you learn a spell of that level or lower, you need the spell book feat to learn more spells than that. There's no trading out spells, your choices are permanent.

How to read the spells. There's an editing error, in the focus power test text it mentions rolling doubles invoking perils of the warp. Since that isn't repeated anywhere else (and would make casting quite risky and nasty) I'm sure it's an editing mistake from an earlier draft of the rules.

Keywords for the spells. Important subtleties on how a spell works. Attack. Combo-OK -usable in spell combos. Focus - requires a material focus to cast and maintain the spell. Language dependent. Material - has a consumed material component. Mind affecting. Ranged touch - requires a ranged attack, I don't know of it's a typo or not that it says dexterity + ballistics instead of level + ballistics. Saving throw - allows a save, people who saves know a spell tried to affect them even if it's subtle, the DC of the save is either listed in the spell or is the result of the focus power test used to cast the spell. Social - cannot be used in combat (actually important, I'd misread this one and thought it was more of a 'socially acceptable to cast' sort of thing). Somatic. Verbal. Subtle - casting and effects aren't immediately obvious, other casters can try arcana + wisdom to notice it. Touch - requires a normal level + brawling test to tag someone.

Duration, the time can be real units like days and minutes or game units like rounds and scenes. If it's concentration the description will include what sort of action is needed to maintain the spell (it's usually a reaction, so it would eat your reaction each turn to maintain concentration). No mention of being hit or damaged breaking your concentration so I presume it doesn't. An "(E)" indicates the spell can be expended, details in the spell's description.

Spell combos, spend xp to combo two spells that you know into one, cannot be done during character creation. Takes 50xp per level per spell in the combo to create it. DMs don't have to allow combos even f you have the xp. Use the lowest characteristics and the lowest magic school you have in the combo for casting it. DC to cast is the highest one of the spells in the combo +5 per additional spell. Cannot be cast fettered, and warp rolls are at +5 per spell in the combo in addition to whatever else is going on. Takes an action to cast equal to the longest casting action, no speeding anything up here. Focus, material, and VSM are combined and missing any means you fail to cast. Unless every spell in the combo is subtle the combo isn't subtle. Everything else, is tracked separately for each spell in the combo, range, duration, attack rolls, saves, language dependency, mind affecting, etc. Can't use the same spell twice, so no double fireballs.

I think that one I did for an Athasian sorcerer-king was something like blink + luck + energy grasp. Blink, TN 15 conjuration + willpower, 1/2 action somatic instant, to teleport 40m. Luck, TN 20 divination + wisdom, 1/2 action subtle scene expendable, to get extra rolled 'luck' dice to stuff. Energy grasp, TN 20 evocation + charisma, 1/2 action touch attack verbal & somatic, brawl attack with evocation + charisma for the damage roll. So that was 250xp (a first level spell plus two second level spells) for a DC 30 casting check that used the lowest of conj/div/evok + will/wis/cha. Mind, as a high end sorcerer-king he was still throwing 8k4r1 at that, defiling (Athas overcasting) for four extra dice putting him at 10k5r1 casting. I think he got a bit below average, about 45 or so. Which gave him 4 luck dice, a 40m line of sight teleport, and a (this is where you use those luck dice) brawling attack for 9k6 magic (ignores armor) energy damage. He used it to blink into the cockpit of an assault shuttle, the target dodged so a bulkhead got a meter+ wide hole blown in it from the punch. The 45-50 damage that attack usually puts out is going to harsh up just about anyone.

Ok, that's the magic rules. I'll start in on the spells next.

[KatsOfLoathing]

Maybe worth noting that the Tremere and Silent Strider assets are the only way to cleanly access the Necromancy and Transmutation schools (respectively). Atlanteans and Demonhosts can technically do so, but I don't believe they can put points into the relevant casting skill without being the proper races. Maybe not much, but something.

Looking forward to seeing your individual ratings of spells.

[Telok]

Maybe worth noting that the Tremere and Silent Strider assets are the only way to cleanly access the Necromancy and Transmutation schools (respectively). Atlanteans and Demonhosts can technically do so, but I don't believe they can put points into the relevant casting skill without being the proper races. Maybe not much, but something.

Looking forward to seeing your individual ratings of spells.

It took me a bit to figure out what you were talking about with the 'cleanly'. Daemonhosts, Atlanteans, Vampires with the Tremere asset, and Werewolves with the Silent Strider asset all get one dot/rank in a magic school and that magic school counts as always being in-class for them. The vamps and weres are locked into their magic schools but also get a +1k1 bonus to those schools. Interestingly I re-checked the free study bit and if you've been in a class with a sword or magic school then it counts as having been in-class for buying it during free study. Note that if you don't have a magic or sword school in a class then you can't buy it while you're in that class, and if you've never had a magic or sword school in any of your classes then you can't buy it during free study. So it's four ways to get a magic school 'cleanly' that depend on your exalt type, or as long as you take one level of a class with the magic schools you want you can buy them up while you're in free study between classes.

Also, I made a little roller program to check the deadliness of my warp tables. 100,000,000 rolls per check. At +0 (no modifier) 188 instantly deadly results. At +10 1156 instant death results. At +20 12,413 instant deaths. Even at +40 it was only 677,603. Sounds like a lot? Out of a hundred million that's about 0.677%, little more than 1/200 at full unsanctioned overcasting. More fun was that there were 174 instances of at least three rolls on table 3 and one roll on table 4, that might not be instant death but it sure is instant !!FUN!!.

Now, this is interesting, some of the schools (abjuration and divination) have different school-characteristic matches in the second book. After counting the numbers of spells in the schools, and not finding any mention of or reason for it anywhere, I think it's an editing error. So I'm ignoring it.

Spells form the second book will come last in the lists.

Abjuration, uses willpower although the second book puts it's five spells as using intelligence for no discernible reason.
L1:
Shield -> somatic reaction used as a parry attempt. Good.
Armouring Aura -> touch gives an aura that reduces the effects of magic on you. 1 + 1/raise on the casting check. Acts as armour against spells that do damage and reduces the save DC of spells that allow saves. Maximum of three times your level. Also good.
Endure elements -> ignore hot/cold environmental effects for a scene. Not a first choice unless there's lots of lava walking or getting lost on Hoth being done.
L2:
Knock -> somatic touch that undoes all non-magic locking mechanisms on a door. Situational, also meltaguns & explosives. If you still need a door after you've opened it then obviously you need many more explosives.
Dispel -> no key-words reaction to oppose another caster. If your casting check is higher then you nope their spell. Good, if often a source of over casting in our game.
Voidskin -> somatic spell that gives you a magic void suit effect for a scene. Specifically 'immune to the ravages of space' including pressure and radiation. Provides air. Very maybe pick depending on how often you encounter personal space combat. Could work as scuba or reactor core protection though?
L3:
Mage armour -> touch for one day long magic armour. Takes no proficiency, no maximum dexterity, 1 + 1/raise on the casting check. Maximum of three times your level. Generally you'll never see higher than a 40 (fettered 5k5 and 40 is still over the 80% mark so you're re-trying 5 times or so if the DM allows) which is going to be like, 6 armour points. Even at 10k5 and willing to suck the warp effect rolls 50 = 8 armour points = plate armour and that's still over the 70% mark, so probably 4 rolls to catch it. Iffy unless you can wear armour, then not a good choice.
Glyph -> touch something and for a day you can target it for your spells without having line of effect (range still applies). Don't lose the small gemstone focus. Try to tag fleeing enemies with this, or just people you want to fireball while you stand behind an armoured bulkhead. Alternately consider gluing it to an ally and using touch spells on than at range.
Ruby Ray -> no keyword reaction for one of two dispel type options. As a reaction it's self only and reflects the single target spell aimed at you that you're reacting to. Beat the other fellow's casting roll and the spell affects them instead of you. Cast the other way (as a reaction still?) and it covers another person for the first single target spell that targets them before the end of the round. I have a feeling that this is missing some info, like a range for that second option. Unless you really want the ShadowRun method of spell sniping, 3km away with a spotting scope. Ask the DM, or at least think about this if you're the DM.
L4:
Exploding runes -> Fun times! Social (so not in combat) touch an object & readers of the runes get a 3m radius 4k4 damage. Lasts until triggered and you plus people you designate are safe from your runes. Not mentioned are language barriers, reading intent, and triggering range. With a wee bit of technology you can make these into perfectly serviceable grenades. Target number 30 to cast though, since it's out of combat just do it fettered and accept some re-tries. The FUN choice.
Disjunction -> no keyword reaction dispel clone. But if you nope their spell they can't cast until the end of your next turn. A decent choice.
Globe of Invulnerability -> somatic verbal cast and for the rest of the scene you're immune to 1st and 2nd level spells. Notes that spells not affecting you still work so people can still use Shield to parry your attacks and Luck to give themselves bonus dice to hit you. Also a decent choice.
L5:
Contingency -> social (non-combat casting only) indefinite expendable touch (can touch others) spell that you case another spell right after. The second spell waits until your defines trigger happens before it goes off. Targets have to be chosen at the time of casting but can be vague ("fireball wherever my finger is pointing when I say woo-boo"). May only have one contingency active at a time.
Wall of force -> DC 35 to cast a scene long indestructible 20m long indestructible force field anywhere within 50m. Stops short if it would bisect a solid object (tree, person, table, etc.). Unknown visibility, height, orientation, etc., etc. Since it's a 5th level spell I'm happy with a 20m by 20m indestructible translucent plane of force at any orientation within 50m. At least that prevents infinite height force walls from smashing up space stations.

Personal ratings
L1: Shield or aura depending on how much parrying I'm expecting.
L2: Dispel. Unless the game is specifically going to be very heavily space going and I'm not otherwise immune. Meltaguns and las cannons are for locked doors.
L3: Glyph, probably. Unless I decided I really needed the voidskin spell. Mage armour if I have zero expectation of getting armoured up any other way.
L4: Hard choices. These are good spells.
L5: Still hard choices, although contingency will win out if the DM is a waffle.

I have conjuration written but it's late and I'll type it in tomorrow. Suffice it to say I think that the spells in the second book are badly in need of a good editor and proofreader. I'm going to have to issue my personal errata for the spells after I'm done with this.

[Telok]

Conjuration, uses willpower. A very popular magic school.
L1:
Invisible servant -> social spell (out of combat) that gives you a one hour duration "animating force" that can do anything not requiring a skill roll. Has 1s in all stats if it matters. Well that gives it a speed of 2 and a run of 12 for carrying that bag of grenades (it lasts an hour, you just have to cast it out of combat) over to an enemy. Or a friend if you're a practical joker who worships Malal. It can't drive... no it can, it's just terrible at it. I recall that the book 2 vehicle rules cover non-skilled driving and it just defaults to the worse of dexterity or intelligence.
Blink -> the absolute favourite level 1 spell of non-vamps and non-were. Combo-Ok somatic 40m line of sight teleport for the low cost of a DC 15 casting check. 4k3 is plenty to cast it almost all the time (~15% fail rate and 93% of the time you do get warp rolls for being unsanctioned you still won't get off the first table... well my first table, there's a 30% change by the book's table).
Web -> Combo-Ok VSM puts a 5m radius of webs centred on a point within 25m and all in it are immobilized for your level in rounds. As written there's no save, no escape, and no size limits. Although nothing prevents forced movement out of it. Also nothing about what happens if you drop it in mid-air or on water. Needs work.
L2:
Lesser Servant -> full round summons to get a small creature or entity to aid you. All stats and skills at 2 and lasts a minute per caster level. No pilot? "I summon the spirit of Bob the pilot!", 4k2. No arcanist? Summon something, 4k2. Lock needs to be picked? Summon something, 4k2. Got a pile of laz guns and an oncoming horde? Spam gene-geneered combat monkeys to fight for you. I'd consider it a level 2 critter for ballistics and weaponry, heck even size 2 to keep things simple.
Call item -> interesting spell, social so no casting it during combat but when cast on an item that you can hold in one hand you get to summon that item to your hand as a free action. No distance, not expended, limit one such enchanted item at a time. Nice if you want a cheap artifact weapon, get a knife (vary common, artifact 1) and throw it a lot. Under no circumstances would I consider a man-portable laz cannon "one handed" unless you get your combined size and strength up to 12.
Obscuring fog -> three five meter cubes per caster level that reduce visibility to 2m. Otherwise normal fog that dissipates in about 5 minutes or a dozen flamer shots. I saw this in action against a bunch of 5m tall kill-bots and it worked very well.
L3:
Jaunt -> combo-Ok and no other key words, reaction spell usable as a dodge attempt that also teleports you 10m. Line of sight preferred. With a casting DC of 25 you're adding at least 12 to your static defence and you still get the 10m even if you didn't zorp out in time to avoid the hit. Excellent, except...
Porte: This is almost exactly like having a portal gun. If you can't have terrible abusive fun with this you aren't even trying. Half action or reaction to cast, lasts a day per caster level (odd but... ok?). 100m range, line of sight required, also a sufficiently large and reasonable flat surface to cast it on. It can't move, neither the portal nor the surface. It just winks out if that happens. You'll have to cast the spell twice and can't have more than 2 portals.You can't dismiss it but if you cast another you choose which one winks out. People/things can hang out half way through but you can't cut them in half, they're safely ejected. Momentum is conserved. Now I, personally, interpret the 'no move' clause as the portal target surface can't be moving relative to the caster during casting and can't move relative to the other portal. So casting in two different cars on a moving train works fine, until the train rounds a bend and the forward portal winks out. Seriously, portal gun.
Cloudkill -> as fog cloud but you only get one 5m cube per caster level. Anyone who breathes within it has to make a DC 15 constitution save or take a wound, unless they're immune in one of at least 5 different ways. One star, would not cast again.
L4:
Greater servant -> as lesser servant but with a higher cast DC and 4s in all stats and skills. 8 HP, 5 resilience, static defence 26, rolls 8k4 for everything, punches for 4k1 damage or hand it a big axe for 7k3 and 4 penetration. A legit moderately dangerous & useful critter.
Teleport -> combo-ok blink without a maximum distance. Only to places you've "seen" and perception+wisdom vs. 25+ to get somewhere that isn't "very familiar". Can't go through crystal spheres, void shields, or probably other force fields. Notably not multi-target and not a touch spell. Still quite good.
Incendiary cloud -> as fog cloud but three 5m cubes per level and doesn't care about the flamers. Anyone entering or being inside gets automatically set on fire. Better but not good enough.
L5:
Gate -> social (not in combat). As Porte but you don't need line of sight, uses the teleport rules for non-LOS targeting. And that's it... The "as Porte" just ruins it. It's really really disappointing for a 5th level spell. My personal errata: cast non-combat it takes an hour but has teleport range and doesn't worry about the ends moving relative to each other. Still can't go through crystal spheres or shields. Cast in combat it's a full round and has the 100m range limit but you get both portals at once.
Black blade of disaster -> basically summon a power sword with infinite armour penetration that winks out if you drop it. Lasts through the scene. Not good enough to take. Just a power sword with better penetration isn't impressive. Doesn't say "pinnacle of conjuration spells" to me. I'd at the minimum add shocking and a fear test (DC = to-hit roll), possibly even toxic.

Personal ratings
L1: Blink. Sorry. Web needs more details and invisible servant just can't compete.
L2: Tough choices. Although I'd only take lesser servant if I'm not expecting to get Conjuration 4 anytime in the next 3-6 RL months.
L3: Porte unless I'm totally desperate for dodge actions. Even then since it's also a reaction you can conceivably stunt it into a quasi-dodge if you've prepared correctly. Not cloudkill, it's far too weak.
L4: Not incendiary cloud. The other two are both really good.
L5: Not in a by-the-book game or else take the other L4 spell. Using my versions... probably gate. Ooch, just looked up the D&D 3.5 black blade spell, I'd forgotten it was functionally a disintegrate+ flying, dancing, sword. I'll have to think about my errata version a bit more. But seriously it needs to be more then a 4k2 sword that only ignores armour.

Know why this is such a popular magic school? Blink. It's just too good to pass up at first level. You could very nearly justify dropping cloudkill to 2nd, and obscuring fog to 1st, then putting blink at 3rd and it would still be pretty good. Even just swapping blink and obscuring fog might be enough.

[Telok]

Divination, uses wisdom. Personally I like this school.

L1:
Augury -> DC 20 non-combat cast to get a general idea if your current course of action will have a positive or negative outcome. Failure gets a false reading. No other real limits or guidance written down.
Whisper -> combo-Ok subtle line of sight single target short message. Unimpressive.
Detect thoughts -> subtle non-combat mind affecting that gets you the target's general emotional state. Roll equal or higher than the target's mental defense and get actual thoughts. Beat that by raises equal to the target's willpower and do a deep probe for the answer to a single question.
L2:
Foresee -> somatic reaction to dodge. Basically swap acrobatics + dexterity with divination + wisdom & possible warp rolls.
Luck -> combo-Ok subtle spell to get an extra luck die to use on tests. DC 20 and every 5 gets you another die. You can't spend more dice on a roll than your level. Unspent dice poof at the end of the scene.
Arcane eye -> material component is an eyeball, cast out of combat to get a tiny "difficult to spot" magical sensor that moves at your base speed and has a range of 4 kilometres. Senses are normal for your race (not your exalt?) and magical or technological boosts don't work through it. Any damage pops it.
L3:
Scry -> a focus requiring non-combat spell that lasts as long as you spend a half action to maintain it. You need an object or body part from the target (sell them something if they use cash) and they get an arcana + willpower save to negate the spell. It gives you a 10m radius vision around the target. You can probably get some pretty hoopy effects if you use a 10m radius fun-house mirror as the focus and cast it on yourself while standing in the middle.
Precognition -> combo-Ok and subtle. Works like Luck but the DC is 5 higher and it gives you re-rolls instead. You can spend as many of them on a test as you like.
Legend lore -> non-combat History channel documentary spell for stuff. Should probably work on people without having to kill them first too, although that might change police interrogations a bit.
L4:
Mind net -> subtle mind affecting telepathic network with your allies. I'd limit it to people reasonably nearby and let you include other people you see and know in addition to 'allies'. May or may not work on Chosen of Malal even if they're on your side, but that's just my interpretation.
Unluck -> attack divination! Subtle, save, combo-Ok. DC 30 to make a target within 10m lose a die from ALL ROLLS for the rest of the scene if they can't beat you with an arcana + willpower save. Every raise on the casting test strips another die from them. If you can hit 50 you can turn someone's 5k5 damage man-portable laz cannon into a flash-light.
Foresee -> non-combat augury on steroids. The DM has to give you a vague but useful idea of the next (DM's best guess) threat to you and something of what you can do to prepare for it. When the threat comes up or is prevented/skipped the spell pings again to tell you that time of the threat is now. The DM doesn't have to be specific but does have to be useful, and it acknowledges that DMs aren't perfect at predicting player actions.
L5:
Commune -> a six keyword spell, one of which is social so no combat casting this one. It lets you talk to anyone you can name for five minutes. So what happens if I name "Mr. Smith"? Oh, wait... Loth, Pelor, Nurgle, Khorn. Heyyyy, I can prank call gods! There's no way that could go wrong.
Hindsight -> non-combat concentration (reaction) spell that lets you see the past. Historical events or named dates and times. You can walk around and look but no interaction because its just a vision or illusion.

Personal ratings
L1: Augury or detect thoughts. That will depend on how combat oriented the campaign is.
L2: Luck, but I want foresee too. Hard choices.
L3: Almost certainly precognition. Depending on the game maybe scry, maybe.
L4: Unluck if I have luck & precognition. Foresee if there are lots and lots of unpleasant ambushes with no warning or the game is a train job but the DM is fair.
L5: Prank calling gods.

I think that divination is really my favourite of all the magic schools.

[Telok]

Enchantment, uses charisma obviously and only the bard classes gets access.

L1:
Charm person -> mind affecting subtle non-combat spell that gives you +2k0 on all social rolls with the target for a scene if they fail an arcana + willpower save. It notes that if you treat them well they could possibly remain friendly, so apparently it's not the kind of spell that tells someone that you're an evil mind controller when it wears off.
Command -> six keywords including attack & language dependent. Give a one word command and if they fail the arcana + willpower save (ok, all the enchantment saves are arcana + willpower, they could have thrown an wisdom or intelligence in there for variety though) they have to attempt anything short of suicide or jumping off tall buildings without a parachute. Players of course are notoriously bad at going along with mind control effects (I was too, twenty years ago, but I've gotten better).
Shock and awe -> a combo-ok attack that isn't mind affecting. Everyone within 10m of the target loses 5 off their initiative. Cannot be used to give someone two turns in a round.
L2:
Stun -> another combo-ok attack that isn't mind affecting. Target something within 10m of you and if it fails the usual arcana + willpower save it can only take a half action for it's next turn. If it fails by 5 or more it can't take any actions on it's next turn. This doesn't reference the stunned condition so it's up to the DM if no-stun abilities work on it.
Attraction -> non-combat subtle spell that, for an hour, makes the touched person or thing an attention magnet. People get +1k1 on all social rolls while objects get picked up and fooled with. Works to at least 30m and there's the usual arcana + willpower save to be unaffected.
Confusion -> combo-ok mind affecting attack spell with no save. For the rest of the scene roll on a little random table (hurt self, do nothing, act normally, if the roll is 10 the spell breaks). People can't be affected by more than one confusion spell at a time and... no range listed? C'mon people.
L3:
Dominate -> full action many key word not subtle spell that takes a half action every round to maintain. It does about what you'd expect, someone within 10m fails an arcana + willpower save and has to follow orders. If it's something "outside their nature" they get a +5 on the save and if its self destructive or violent vs. allies they get a +15. Hm, I'm not sure if its save-every-round (unlikely, the spells with that say so), save when a new order might be at a bonus, or if you should just roll the save once and keep the +5/+15 numbers as thresholds for the spell breaking if you're order to do something in those categories. I kind of like the threshold idea.
Awe -> full round to cast Stun as a 10m radius area of effect spell.
Suggestion -> non-combat and subtle. Make a request of the target. If it's "within their nature" they don't get a save, otherwise they get an undefined save (probably arcana + willpower again but you could make a case for wisdom). Even if they save they just think that they were really tempted by the idea and not that you were using mind control magic.
L4:
Encore -> mind affecting, verbal, one round per level, and... expendable? Target save arcana + willpower every round or else the repeat what they did last round. No clue why it's marked expendable.
Blindness -> combo-on touch attack that blinds for a day on a failed arcana + willpower save. Meh.
Demand -> subtle non-combat no-save Suggestion spell. Target may instead spend resolve at 1 + 1/casting raise to resist. At DC 30 to cast you won't usually have too many raises, it might almost be better with a save. Definitely "meh" at best.
L5:
Geas -> subtle combo-ok attack at DC 20 to cast (weirdly low for a level 5 spell). As Command but if they fail the save they'll follow suicidal commands and will engage in extended activities in order to complete the command. Given player's tendencies to creatively minimize and misinterpret everything to the maximum extent when mind control is involved I'm not sure this is really any better than command for the DM.
Amnesia -> non-combat touch spell where it's save or get your memories rewritten by the caster. The victim explicitly fills in blanks on their own so you don't have to be amazingly detailed in your rewriting descriptions. Again a spell from book 2 does not tell you what the save is.

Personal picks: Well, as a DM I have to deal with players who do things like try to interpret the command "flee" as "make someone else flee" or "act like a flea". As a player it depends on the DM not doing exactly the same thing.
L1: Shock and awe, unimpressive but reliable. Also there's no reason it can't stack like damage.
L2: As DM Confusion, as a player Attraction (same effect or better than charm person and has alternate uses).
L3: Dominate. People are generally better about this one then the other softer mind controls. However depending on who we rule the saves, if I'm playing I may choose Awe for the AoE stunning effect.
L4: Encore. No competition. Blindness is weak for this level and Demand... Maybe if we see a lot of social combat and draining resolve would be useful, maybe.
L5: Geas I guess, or a L3 or L4 that I didn't get before.

Unfortunately more then the writing/editing errors (at the least explicit ranges would be useful on several of these and some non-willpower saves would be appreciated) this school depends on the people across the table being willing to accept that their character is mind controlled for a round/few rounds/a scene and actually go with it. Hmm. We could add that as an explicit part of the save. Say if you fail the save by less than 5 or 10 you can subvert the commands but if you fail by more then you have to actually really obey the spirit of the command/spell. I don't really mind some ambiguity or flexibility in things but the whole mind control vs. players thing has more than 30 years of history behind it and anything to try to make things smoother (and stuff like illusions and enchantment less divisive &or more attractive) would be appreciated.

The first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is a problem.

[Telok]

Ah, evocation. Everybody's favourite murder-hobo death and mayhem magic. Run off charisma. I don't think that I have to mention that basically everything here is an attack spell of some sort. Almost all of them are combo-ok too.

L1:
Magic missile, a classic -> somatic DC 15 cast and a target within 30m takes 2k1 damage. No dodge, no parry. Every raise on the casting roll gets you another missile up to extra missiles equal to your level (different missiles can target different things). I'm going to have to break it to you, you're generally looking at 2 wounds half of the time to resilience 4 targets (8 damage is about the 50/50 break point). The benefit is that this avoids armor. The downside is that almost any aura will effectively negate the spell. Just freaking buy a grenade launcher or use a gun.
Energy burst -> somatic ranged attack out to 30m with burst 2 (2m radius blast) that does 3k2 damage +2 per level of the caster. So about twice the damage of magic missile, you just have to land it near your target(s).
Battering ram -> verbal cast and a target with in 30m makes an arcana + strength save. For each 5 points they fail by they're pushed back 2m. Push them back further than their speed and they fall prone. Flying targets are pushed twice as far but don't go prone.
L2:
Energy grasp -> verbal and somatic this time, make a brawling attack and do evocation + charisma for damage.
Energy ray -> full action somatic cast. Deal 5k3 damage on a ballistics attack with a range of 50m per level.
Defenestration -> verbal and somatic, target within 100m and a wall within 5m (no wall, no effect). The target hits the wall and they both take 4k2 damage from the impact (armor applies this time). If the wall's armor value is less than 5x the caster's level then the target goes through the wall.
L3:
Energy ball, our fireball expy -> material somatic and a ranged touch attack. Shoot at something within 30m and a blast 10 (10m radius) explosion does 2k1 per level. Requires gunpowder to cast. This is where that atlantean trick of counting as +3 levels higher for casting on a spell can be nasty.
Energy Aura -> focus somatic and verbal that lasts a scene. Anyone within melee range of you at the end of your turn or that you hit in melee combat, takes 1k1 +3/level damage. You're really depending on that +9 (minimum) to +15 (normal max) to do the damage here, 1k1 isn't really worth much of anything 90% of the time.
Prismatic ray -> somatic verbal ranged touch out to 50m per level. On a hit you do (1d10)k(1d10) damage. Random damage is random. I could see using it to snipe tanks, buildings, and cover is you're in a slow or drawn-out fight though. Of course hero point re-rolls are a thing too.
L4:
Energy wall -> full action somatic that requires a vial of oil to cast, effect lasts the rest of the scene. This is our first... ok, the only evocation spell that isn't combo-ok. Which is a shame because it would go really well with Defenestration. What you get for a DC 25 cast is a 10m long +5m per raise you got on the casting roll wall that does 4k2 damage and doesn't block line of sight or any form of targeting. Doesn't say anything about shaping it so I'd allow that since the damage is a bit low for a 4th level spell effect. No height either. 10m? Keep it simple I guess. Also it's 'energy wall' so even though we expect fire I guess you could do lasers, electricity, magnetism, negative thermal, or maybe convince me to go for gravity.
Energy bits -> somatic verbal full action cast and lasts for a scene or until you use it up. DC freaking 5! Get an energy sphere for casting and another per raise (ok that explains the cast DC, number equal to the casting roll divided by 5, dropping fractions). At the start of your turn (so everyone gets a round of warning) you can expend any number of spheres as a free action. For each sphere you make a ballistics attack at something within 50m and do 4k2 on a hit. Ah, the big drawback, you can't shoot more than 2 spheres at once at any one target. You're looking at 14 to 18 damage per sphere here. Shame about not getting to dump everything on one target all at once. Expect to average 6 to 8 spheres.
Lightning ring -> somatic verbal and lasts the rest of the scene. An aura that does (your level + raises on the casting roll)k2 damage at the end of your turn. As a half action... they forgot the expendable tag... shoot a blast of lightning 40m, standard ballistics attack, does 5k2 energy damage and reduces the kept dice of the aura damage by 1. DC 30 to cast so you aren't getting too many raises, in fact on 8k4 you only have about a 30% chance to get 2 raises.
L5:
Energy meteors -> You know how the D&D meteor storm spell seems to keep getting worse with every edition? This one's decent. Full action to throw (ballistic attack) a 6k4 blast 10 energy ball spell out to 120m plus another one for every dot in evocation. So we get a minimum of 6, with overcasting or atlantean boosts getting to 9 or 10. The 6k4 damage spread is 10%:21, 20%:24, 30%:26, 40%:28, 50%:30, 60%:32, 70%:35, 80%:38, 90%:44, so you can assume 3 to 11 wounds on most things. Do not annoy the unsanctioned 5th level evocation sorcerer, he can put you down. The warp may eat him alive, but you'll go down.
Reality maelstrom -> WTF. Ok, full action verbal somatic attack that does: "Make an attack with Burst 10 centred on yourself. Everyone affected by this attack rolls on the psychic phenomena table." Blast weapons are just 'everything within the blast gets hit' because frankly making individual attack and damage rolls is something I'm just not doing for 5+ targets and I don't see another way to really read the blast effect description. It's not like it tells you to make a ranged touch attack or anything either. So that's just sort of "everyone roll on the warp tables". Which is mostly nuisance stuff plus maybe a fear test or two except that there's a 25% chance of AoE "f* U!" stuff going on per person.

Ok, ok. Personal picks:
L1: Energy burst. Reliable and effective.
L2: Defenestration. So much fun.
L3: Probably energy ball, possibly prismatic ray, energy aura is just a bit too weak.
L4: Actual choices... Often energy wall, although maybe energy bits if I'm expecting to be good at ballistics and have lots of mooks to shoot at. Lightning ring just isn't... impressive unless you get a surprisingly good roll.
L5: Energy meteors. Because "wild magic blow myself up and take the game with me" isn't my style. Especially if I've slogged up to 5th level in a spell school.

This is the official half way point of the magic schools and after the schools we're at the half way point of the book (by page count). How do people feel about magic so far?

[Telok]

Ah, healing. The opposite of evocation right? Runs off of wisdom.

L1:
Cure light wounds -> Nice traditional start here. Combo-ok, somatic, verbal, touch. Spend a resource point to heal the target one HP. Well that's certainly light. So, its for use on people who otherwise can't spend resource points on healing. that's many NPCs, most promethians, and exalts who can't easily regain resource points. Limited.
Boon -> Combo-ok, verbal, duration one minute or untill used. Allies within 10m get +1k0 on their next attack roll. Truely unimpressive.
Shield other -> focus & non-combat, lasts 24 hours. For the next 24 hours if the target would lose hit poonts the caster can choose to loose them instead. DMs option as to if you can take only part of the damage, or if you have to be aware of it to take it, or if you choose before or after the damage is rolled, or... Lots of room to rule on this one. Although a cult of level 1 initiates can make for a really tough cult leader this way.
L2:
Regeneration -> non combat and as long as the target gets a week of bed rest the regrow a limb. The non-cyberwear fix for the de-limbing crits.
Boost -> verbal semi-white raven tactics. An ally within 10m gets to take a half action. Does not change initiative.
Death ward -> non combat spell lasting a day. For that day the next time the target would die they survive. Does not protect against continual effects like lave baths or suffocation. Used to good effect on teleports to orbiting starships where momentum is conserved. Combos well with shield other.

Quick trick: Get two level 2 vampire exalt allies with healing 2 spells and followers, lots of followers. The allies cast shield other on you, then each other, then everyone gets death ward. Climb into an insulated pod, get loaded into a big gun, and do your personal orbit-to-ground mach 3 lithobraking maneuver. Climb out of the wreckage completely unscathed. Ally #1 back on the ship is now a mangled heap, but alive. Ally #2, not being in combat, casts death ward on ally #1 again. Ally #1 begins healing while the followers line up for blood donations. As long as they are both consious, and at least one of them has a current death ward, you have functionally nearly infinite hit points.

L3:
Cure moderate ounds -> As cure light wounds but bypasses the/all resource point exependiture limits.
Rebuke -> combo-ok verbal healing attack. A target within 10m who worships/reveres/follows a different god than you do loses a hit point and an unspent hero point. You aren't casting this for the damage.
Atonement -> non-combat spell with an undefined material component. The target's highest/worst degeneration (penalty for letting your devotion fall below 6 and violating your alignment) goes away. The target can't get another atonement untill they spend xp to raise devotion, which if I recall correctly would have had the same effect.
L4:
Consecrate -> Full action VSM cast that, in a 50m radius from the caster, gives everyone who worships the same god a +1k0 on all rolls. The caster has to spend a half action every round or it shrinks by 5m per minute. Call it roughly a 1/2m per round-ish?
Holy weapon -> VSM and spend a sharpening stone to make a weapon magical and give it +1k1 damage aginst "enemies of your god", whatever that is. If you worship Malal do your allies count? Oh, only one at a time and you still expend the whetstone to enchant your gun.
Heal -> As cure moderate but cleans out poisons and diseases too. Seriously weak considering exalts are pretty resistant to those thngs.
L5:
Resurrection -> non-combat of course. Spend 5 resource points and someone comes back from the dead with one less point of constitution and zero hit points. Do not cast on someone with 1 constitution to start with. Doesn't say anything about needing all the bits first but since there's no time limit either you can probably drag the chunks to a medical facility and staple them together before hand. Saves people from having to burn hero points.
Divine power -> verbal somatic focus touch. For the rest of the scene you get +2 size, +2 strength, and heal a hit point at the end of your turn. At the end of the scene make an alignment test. Also protect the holy symbol focus so nobody shoots it.

Personal picks:
L1: Shield other, normally. Boon is naff and cure light is pretty limited.
L2: Hard choices. Regen is nice to not have to buy bionic limbs lost to crits. Boost... White raven tactics, 'nuff said. Death ward is pure survival, although exalts are usually pretty tough to begin with.
L3: Hard choices again, but this time because none of them scream with awesome. Rebuke needs multiple casts at people with hero points. Atonement requires people regularly doing alignment violations. And cure moderate needs lots of easily replaced resource points (read atlantean, daemonhost, vampire).
L4: Holy weapon unless you have lots of "same god" allies around. Followers, allies, backing, the right class, it's not too out there.
L5: Choose one: save hero points or a mid-power combat buff wiht a possible downside? Ressurection. Divine power needs rather more to be a 5th level spell than +1 resilence, -4 static defense, +2k0 melee damage, and +2k2 on athletics/intimidate checks. Ok, the healing is nice, but at least add aura = devotion and another reaction each round. Maybe reroll something once each round as well? Actually that would be worth it. Add aura = devotion, an additional reaction each round, the +2 strength into a +2 <choose a stat>, and reroll one check each round including the alignment check at the end of the spell. Now I think it stacks up against other 5th level spells.

[QuadraticGish]

Magic seems kind of hit or miss mostly; I'm not that much of a fan of the potential warp stuff personally and I'm disappointed at the lameness of Magic Missile and the lack of being able to combo with itself means no fun magic machine gun.

[Telok]

Magic seems kind of hit or miss mostly; I'm not that much of a fan of the potential warp stuff personally and I'm disappointed at the lameness of Magic Missile and the lack of being able to combo with itself means no fun magic machine gun.

It is hit or miss. This was all written by one guy as a joke/dare causing the editing to be distinctly spotty and showing a definite lack of play testing. Magic missile is sad when you face resilience 7 targets and want more than a point or two of damage, but each missile will do an unavoidable wound to a resilience 5 target 84% of the time. If you're throwing grenades at a resilience 5 with 10 armor (common flak doubles versus explosions) you'll only do 2 wounds with 29% of the grenades and zero wounds 37% of the time, you can run out of ammo, plus you risk the occasional stunt where they whack it back at you before it goes off. Don't combo magic missile, combo energy burst, ray, ball, and lightning ring. You'd be level 4 trying for a DC 45 cast, burst and ball just need to be close to do 3k2+8 plus 8k4 plus two straight ballistic attacks at 5k3 and 5k2. Expect 22 & 34 & 23 & 17 damage, to 15 wounds on a resilience 5 target or 9 on a resilience 7 target. That's more than half the hit points of a greater incarnate daemon in one shot and it will frag a lich or chaos marine no questions asked (well the chaos marine is out of HP and taking crits if the DM wants to track those of an NPC).

That said I think the only real issue with the warp stuff is how repetitive the given tables get if you have an unrestrained over-caster like we did. Because there are no limits to trying you can assume that the non-combat spells get cast fettered (no warp at all, ever) if you have 15 to 30 minutes to keep trying. Fettered casting is always safe so at some point (generally 6-8 dice rolled) the lower level spells get pretty reliable. Since you choose which dice to keep you can drop 10s to avoid the warp when casting unfettered. That raises the likelihood of failing to get the spell off, but it's still safe (-ish, 6k3 is safer than 6k5 in that case, but even 6k5 only has a 1/100 chance of forcing you to keep a 10). The real danger is unsanctioned sorcerers pushing spells, which is what my group had (he burned a hero point once on surviving a warp roll, but it was the mounting insanity that finally did him in). That +40 on the perils roll puts it on the AoE warp danger table 2/3 of the time.

It won't come up until the artifacts but you can get a warp effects reroll & choose for Artifact 4 background. Combo with the atlantean exalt for effectively "roll three warps and choose one or two".

Next magic school...

Illusion, uses intelligence.

L1:
Image -> full action combo-ok somatic spell that creates an image up to 3m on a side within 10m of you. You have to use a half action to maintain it every round but if you spend a full round action to maintain it you can make it move. It still has to stay within it's 3m cube though. Wisdom + perception... save? Or maybe you have to check. I think you have to check unless it's something that should move but doesn't. Does not become translucent if you know it's an illusion, so always useful to create concealment.
Disguise -> non-combat spell. Use the casting check result in place of a disguise check and requires your reaction every round to maintain it.
Blur -> combo-ok, somatic, concentration using up your reaction to maintain it. Oh. That's crap. +3 static defense. The errata hammer cometh.
L2:
Invisibility -> everyone's favourite. Combo-ok & subtle, lasts a minute per level. Use the casting check in place of stealth rolls for visibility based stealth stuff. Ends if you make an attack of course.
Ghost sounds -> combo-ok & subtle. Make sounds from a source within line of sight up to 20m away. Get a raise and you can get understandable speech. Two raises and you can mimic someone's voice. Whisper to shout volume. Hm, instant duration so it doesn't continue on after casting.
Illusionary script -> subtle, non-combat, indefinite duration. Create a written message that has one set of content for most viewers but different content for "intended recipients". Takes as long as writing the messages to cast. So a quick marker graffiti on a wall is fast but a full book could take months. Indefinite duration and indefinite mechanics.
L3:
Silence -> combo-ok, somatic, lasts a minute per level. Touched object or person radiates silence out to 5m. Sound based stealth automatically succeeds. Sounds from outside stop at the edge. Negates sonic cannons. Not that any are in the book, but still...
Mirror image -> full action cast, combo-ok, verbal and somatic, DC 25, lasts for an entire scene until expended. One image plus one per raise up to your level. Anything hitting you checks randomly to see if it hits an image, hits pop images. Standard.
Dream -> non-combat spell. Send a message in a dream to someone. Or a nightmare that denies them the benefit of bed rest (mostly healing). No range, can cross crystal spheres. No targeting restrictions either. No mention of if it waits until they're asleep or just fails if they're awake. No save. So... cast nightmare on the person in the green car who cut you off in traffic last week? Get a bunch of friends together and troll Lucifer? Ok, there's easier ways to die a hideous death, but still...
L4:
Improved invisibility -> full action, the only key word is subtle, only lasts a minute. As invisibility but attacking is allowed.
Programmed image -> non-combat spell. For an hour per level it works like the image spell but you can program it to react to a number of stimuli/situations equal to your intelligence. Includes sounds and understandable speech. So, do you have to spend the half action to maintain it still?
Mislead -> combo-ok, subtle, somatic. For a round per level you have an illusionary duplicate of yourself and you turn invisible, you move and it doesn't. When you attack or the image is attacked the spell ends.
L5:
Permanent Image -> somatic & verbal. As image but no need to spend actions maintaining it. Hmmm... No mention of movement or animation, still no sound.
Screen -> DC 25 cast (most level 5s are 35) non-combat spell with a glass prism as a focus. For 24 hours you dictate what will or will not be observed in the spell's area (undefined). Scrying and remote viewing (cameras and satellites are called out) "automatically detect the image selected by you". Direct personal viewing and interaction may allow a saving throw (undefined) "if there is cause to disbelieve what is seen".

Issues: "as Image" is really really restricting. Image doesn't have a duration limit, just the concentration restriction. Programmed image apparently has both. Permanent image has no sound and you may or may not need to spend full round actions making it move. Oh, yeah, blur is crap while dream and screen need more definition.

Personal picks as written:
image, invisibility, silence, mislead, <disappointed sigh>.

Personal picks with personal errata:
L1: Touch choices because blur now adds +3 static defense and another +3 per raise in addition to perception penalties at long ranges and functionally concealing most of your features.
L2: Still invisibility.
L3: Probably still silence. Dream however needs a physical link or at least having personally met and interacted with the person. Plus an arcana + composure save, but failure gives them a level of fatigue plus lose a point of resolve per two checks (fail the save by 10 and gain fatigue & -1 resolve, 20 = 2 fatigue & -2 resolve). But you have to cast while they're asleep & limit one per caster (or maybe make the casting take a couple hours).
L4: Programmed image is still a 3m per side cube but it can move within 10m per caster level of the casting point. Does not require any concentration. Mislead includes a personal silence effect to make the stealth roll usually completely unnecessary. Now it's a harder choice (although programmed image is still probably not the preferred spell).
L5: Permanent image's effect is as programmed image but without a time limit and double size & range (permanent image can be cast in combat since it's not marked as social). Screen explicitly includes adding and removing stuff/people, covers four 5x5x5 meter cubes per dot in the illusion school, includes full surround sound (but not sound negation of any sort) and limited tactile (real pressure like lifting an illusionary glass of water will go through), the prism has to stay within the area and cannot be concealed (but can be under a chair or behind a free standing video screen, out of sight but not covered with or in something else), save is [greater of perception or arcana] + [lesser of intelligence or wisdom] on entry into the area, serious physical collision reveals automatically, does not become translucent when revealed as an illusion (has to be dispelled). Now it's a hard choice because you can sow serious confusion in combat with permanent image, but you can also 'edit out' 30 people with rocket launchers inside of screen or fill it with strobe lights.

[Telok]

Necromancy, for all your fun-time zombie cuddle-buddy needs! Run off of intelligence but depending on the player you might not be able to tell.

L1:
Flush of life -> non-combat and subtle, lasts a scene. Makes a touched corpse or undead breathe and seem alive. Used for "he's just sleeping", merchants of parrots pining for the fjords, and vamps or zombies that need to pass as alive for a while.
Rot -> combo-ok somatic attack spell. A 1m cube of unattended stuff within 20m degrades. DC 15 rots food, 20 crumbles wood, and 25 corrodes metal into a pile of (probably oxidized) flakes. Are some plastics unaffected? Does it work on Twinkies? Does the floor that guy is standing on count at attended? I'm sure the load bearing beam above him doesn't.
False life -> somatic & verbal 24 hours of temporary hit points. Lets face it, the players won't look twice at the others once the see this one. DC 15 to get one THP, and you get another for every +10 after that. Rolling 10k5 you still get 3 more than 50% of the time and only about an 18% chance of getting 5+.
L2:
Speak with the dead -> non-combat. A corpse answers one question per casting, once a day. While truth is assured, obfuscation is a possibility. That's it, no other limits. Chat up King Tut. And now I want to try casting it on a lich.
Draining touch -> combo-ok touch attack. If the player is a necro casting vamp then they choose this one. Brawling attack for 2k2 damage, if a vamp hits with it they get blood points (resource) equal to wounds done. Under performs on bosses/toughs, works well on mooks.
Burning blood -> combo-on somatic ranged attack. For one round per caster level the struck target, if it has blood, takes one wound at the end if it's turn. Range? Range anyone? LoS horizon sniping? Don't know.
L3:
Torment -> combo-ok, saving throw enabled, attack spell. All creatures within 10m of the caster (yes, including the caster) lose half their remaining hit points (potentially ouch) if they fail an arcana + constitution save. Undead get +5 on the save. Fight opening spell.
Raise dead -> non-combat. Uses a resource point and a 'black gem' (I let fancy onyx Go pieces work, no idea why he only ever bought 30) to turn a corpse into a mook zombie. And they are mooks. See if you can work with your DM to get way to improve them (I did, it's recorded somewhere) or else give them grenades. For funsies I let a DC 100 roll animate mega-fauna. Like, 30m long space squid mega-fauna. He pulled it off once (overcast, gained insanity and blew out the back half of a space shuttle, good thing he was already undead or hard vacuum would have killed him too).
Horrid wilting -> combo-ok attack spell. All foes within 20m lose moisture and take a level of fatigue. Um, save? Nope.
L4:
Corrupted earth -> full round VSM. Oh, it's reverse Consecrate. Except not quite. In a 5m radius around the caster people who worship a different god take -1k0 to all rolls. Half action to sustain, full action to increase the radius by 5m up to 50m. Fades out at the same 5m/minute rate as Consecrate does. Not exactly great for a combat spell.
Consume soul -> combo-ok touch attack that... Ok, seriously? Cast it on a recently dead (one minute or less) creature and they can't be brought back to life as long as you are (un)alive. Really? Really? Just use a thermite grenade like a normal person.
Avasculate -> fill action combo-ok attack. One target within 30m saves arcana + constitution or loses half their current hit points. Nobody gets any bonuses on this one.
L5:
Necromutation -> full action cast with a medallion focus. You hit points go to zero. You can't be healed for the rest of the scene. You are immune to hit point loss for 1d10 rounds +1 round per raise on the casting roll. With the DC 35 that probably won't be too many. Also I think that 'immune to hit point loss' really means 'does not take wounds' because once you're out of hit points wounds cause crits.
Zombie plague -> non-combat & requires a vial of 'dead ' blood. As raise dead but anything the zombies kill rises as another zombie. This is your classic 'masses and masses of zombies' movie spell except that a statline of [def:12 res:4 hp:4 ac:none brawl:3k2, 3k1 R, p=0, percept:4k2, mindless undead] tends to get taken down by random industrial robots or bonobo chimps. For even regular troops these are target practice unless they outnumber more than 20-to-1.

Personal picks:
L1: If you can reliably hit DC 25 then Rot blows holes in the scenery, else false life.
L2: Vamps have draining touch, otherwise it depends on the campaign but I like speak with Yorick.
L3: Zombie master or a hard choice. Although horrid wilting avoids friendly fire.
L4: Avasculate if corrupted earth is being run as written. If Corrupted Earth is run as reverse Consecrate then it's a choice.
L5: Zombie plague, just because I can't bring myself to trust that d10 not to roll 1s all the time. Set the Necromutation duration to necromancy ranks + raises and I'd really consider it because it's minimum 5 and boosters affect it.

[Telok]

Transmutation, our last magic school before the sword schools. Oh, and it uses wisdom.

L1:
Swift change -> combo-ok somatic free action quality of life spell. Change in/out of any clothing you're carrying instantly. If you're a "natural shape-changer" you can shift form at the same time. This lets the werewolf wear a tuxedo and carry a briefcase with a really large suit of armor in it, cast the spell and spend the resource point to free action change into their warform wearing armor (the undamaged tux ends up in the briefcase).
Treesong -> VS touch to shape a cubic meter of wood into anything you could sculpt out of clay.
Bloodwind -> VSM and for the rest of the scene use your natural attacks out to 10m per level. It's actual reach too, apparently turning you into an elastic-man sort of mutant for a while but only when you're trying to hurt people. Should a giant were-shark with a 30m telescoping mouth prompt a fear check?
L2:
Dedication -> VSM full action touch with an effect that lasts indefinitely. You touch an item and a person who can change shape, instead of being dropped or shredded the item will "transform with them". Only one item at a time per person.
Animal power -> combo-ok VS touch spell that gives the touched a +1 to a physical (strength, dexterity, constitution) attribute. They get an additional +1 for every two raises (+10 over the casting DC). Player pro-tip: Don't let the inevitable betrayal NPC cast this five or six times before they betray you in the middle of combat, they can go from mildly dangerous to 'hits like a truck' and 'why won't it stop dodging, die-die-die!' if they get a few good rolls.
Enlarge person -> combo-ok & for a scene the touched person gets +1 size (gear resizes too but there are no defined changes from that). Generally a +1 resilience and a -2 static defense.
L3:
Magic fang -> combo-ok and for a scene the touched creature's natural weapons and unarmed attacks get +0k1 damage and are magical.
Polymorph -> full action and for the scene the touched creature turns into a wolf. -1 resilience (-1 size), +8 defense (+2 dexterity), a 1k1 bite, no talking and no thumbs. Pretty much like the werewolf ability. I think that I just realized you should think about weaponizing this spell. Don't tag a lightly armored brawler, but casters and heavy sword&gun guys get whacked.
Stone tell -> non combat talks to rocks. Relatively decent guidance an what information is gained, but it still has the DM screw-up line in it. Needs checking against the divination spells.
L4:
Primal power -> almost as animal power but for all three physical attributes. Given that this one has a DC 10 higher and can't be part of a combo I'm not sure it's worth it. 6k4 averages 30, a +2 to a stat for the scene. 8k4 only gets to 40 (+2 to all three stats) about 27% of the time. 10k5 will get you to 40 about 61% of the time, and 50 29% of the time.
Earthsong -> as Treesong but for stone and 1cu.m. plus another 1cu.m per raise on the casting roll.
Control weather -> non-combat with a "full round" and/or 10 minute casting time. I think it's an editing issue and should just say "see text". Any how, 10 after you finish casting the weather changed to what you want as long as it is appropriate/possible to the area and season. You can choose stuff like the direction and strength of the wind but not tornado paths or lightning strikes. No mention of how large an area it affects.
L5:
Dragon form -> half action VS cast with a jade circlet focus turns you into a (small-ish) dragon for a scene. +3 size, -1 dexterity, +2 strength, x2 fly speed, and a flamer style breath weapon usable every round if you like. You can explicitly talk and cast spells.
Iron body -> Similar to dragon form but you turn into an iron golem, kind-of. +10 armor on all hit locations that doesn't stack with anything, +2 strength, -2 dexterity, and you don't need to breathe. Rather unimpressive really.

Personal picks:
L1: Werewolves take swift change, or for a weird creepy brawler blood wind.
L2: Dedication or animal power. Depends on if the character is a shape shifter and/or uses swift change.
L3: Really depends on the campaign. Probably not stone tell though.
L4: Almost always control weather.
L5: Dragon, no question. Now if you take Iron Body and add stuff from the monster section to it like stuff of nightmares, auto-stabilized, and unnatural toughness, then you'd have a choice.

[Telok]

At the end of the magic chapter there's an intermission blargh from some movie, or anime, or something, that I don't recognize. Then we're on the sword schools.

Fluff goobery intro.

Your matrial adept level is the highest level of any of your sword schools. Unlike magic where every spell is neatly in it's own school you can freely mix and match stuff between sword schools. The whole next couple of pages tells you that you're pretty much building special attacks from scratch and how to do that.

When you take a level in a magic school you pay a chunk of xp, get another die to roll cor casting tests, and learn a spell. When you take a level in a sword school you get diddly except a higher 'rank', 'adept level', or whatever you want to call it. You have to pay more xp to get a maneuver. On the plus side there's no warp crap involved.

Building your special moves involves taking advanteages and restrictions off a list and then paying 50xp per advanatge. You get to pick a number of advantages up to your adept level, after that you have to offset each advantage with a restriction. A few advantages and restrictions are worth more than one 'point' or level thingy. Tucked away somewhere in there is a note that you can only use these with melee attacks, but I ignore that. You also can't combine things that logically shouldn't work. Like using a 'no armor pentration' restriction maneuver with a weapon that doesn't have any penatration any ways, or stacking the 'not if you used it last round' resstriction with the 'only once per scene' restriction.

Building your special move: you pick an action to do the move with, the standard single attacks is always an option but each school adds another action available. Like desert wind lets you build maneuvers based on either the called shot or the standard action, so you can choose to have a called shot maneuver or a standard attack maneuver. Let's say you pick called shot, the maneuver will only work with called shots. Then each school gives you a weapon type, you can use that weapon type for maneuvers, these all stack. If you know three sword schools that let you use say, brawling, chain weapons, and ordinary weapons in maneuvers than you acn use any maneuver yuou know with any of those weapons. If you only know the desert wind school, which uses syrneth weapons, then you can only use your maneuvers with syrneth weapons.

Then you choose your advantages, off setting them with restrictions if you want more advanatages than your highest sword school level. Each sword school has it's own advanatages, with more unlocked per level, in addition to the universal ones. Universal are +1k0 damage, +0k1 damage (counts as 3), +1k0 attack, +0k1 attack (counts as 2), +2 penetration. And yes, you can stack them. The universal restrictions are the opposite for attack and damage (the -0k1 damage only counts as 2 though and the armor penetration reduction is all the way to zero), plus 'can't use this maneuver if you used it last round', and 'con only use thsi maneuver once per scene' (counts as 2).

Say you want, for whatever reason, a killer called shot maneuver. Take one rank in the desert wind sword school, that lets you make maneuvers for called shots but only lets you use maneuvers with syrneth weapons. Add the +1k0 attack twice and the +0k1 attack once, that's +2k1 attack as 4 advantages. You only have one dot in desert wind so you have to off set 3 of the points with restrictions. Take the 'once per scene' and -1k0 damage ones. With 4 advantages you get to pay 200xp for the maneuver.

Since sword schools sort of stack in a manner that magic doesn't lets say you get three dots in devoted spirit later. You can just flat out upgrade that maneuver, and use it with flails too. Since 3/4 of the advantages in the original maneuver were off est with restrictions you can add 2 more advantages without restrictions (because you're martial adept level is 3, the highest of your sowrd schools) plus you devoted spirit 3 gives you new advantage and restriction options. So add another +0k1 dice on the attack roll (total +2k2 attack now), the devoted spirit 'revitalizing strike' where an adjacent ally heals a HP when you hit, and a new restriction of having to make a medic check against the target's static defense in order to make the attack work. That's 3 more advantages (because the +0k1 attack counts as 2) so pay another 150xp.

That fancy-dancy maneuver now looks like -> on a called shot in melee with a syrneth or flail weapon, roll a medicine check vs. the target's static defense, if that succeeds make the called shot attack at +2k2 to hit and -1k0 damage, if you hit one aldjacent ally heals one HP, this can only be done once per scene. This means that if you're 3rd level, using a syrneth monofilament scythe it looks like -> medic + wisdom vs. static defense (say 7k3r1), then a called shot attack at [called shot -2k0, maneuver +2k2, level 3, weaponry 4, specialization] = 7k6r1. The scythe is a 4k2 rending, penetration 8, melee weapon. That gives us [strength (say 3) + 4k2 - 1k0] = 6k2 damage, armor penetration 8, choose your hit location, and an adjacent ally heals a hit point. But you can only try this once a fight (usually a fight will be a scene). Of course this cost us 4 points in two sword schools plus another 350xp.

Perhaps for that price a straight +1k0 on attack and +0k2 damage might be nicer. 7k3r1 medic check, 6k4r1 attack, 7k4 R pen 8 damage, choose hit location (head, because... head). Going from a bit under 20 damage to a bit under 35 damage. Well, your judgement call.

So, safer than magic. More limited (combat attacks & actions that deal with attacks). Overall more expensive in the long run. Still the 4th level of each sword school gives your character a unique and permanent boost.

Here, I'll cover desert wind.

Desert wind sword school.
L1: Use maneuvers with syrneth weapons and called shots.
L2: -2 restriction - attack does no damage, this can't be used with non-damaging actions (aim, parry, etc.).
+1 advantage - on a hit the target is dazzled (-1k0 to all rolls plus additional -1k0 to sight perception) for a round per raise that you hit them by.
L3: -1 restrction - add an athletics + strength check in addition to the attack roll to hit.
+1 advantage - deal energy damage with the attack.
L4: +1 advantage - teleport 5m immedately before or after the attack.
Bonus - When charging you don't have to move in straight lines.
L5: +4 advantage - everyone within 2m of you takes 2k2 energy damage, if you moved then everyone you came within 2m of takes the damage (they can only be affected once).

I think that the reason this school's maneuver action isn't charging is because white raven already took that one and they didn't want to double up on the actions. Hm, I'll try to keep that in mind when I get to the white raven stuff, maybe that would be better using a different sction than charging.

The attack doing no damage could be useful for needlers since they can also inject a toxin or drug. No, wait, melee only (by the book). Um... if you can get them to parry a power weapon with a normal weapon you check for breaking the normal weapon. Or the officer's cutlass can deliver an electric shock. Other than that you'll have to combo it with another school's on-hit effects or the dazzle thing. Well I suppose that's something, a +1k1 standard attack that dazzles for a round per +5 on the to-hit roll but does no damage, costs 200xp base & 300xp worth of sword school though. And it's still a bit 'meh'.

The athletics restriction might be nice. All the book says is that you have to make the roll in order to make the attack (effectively an additional 'attack' roll). You could say that the initiator gets the usual results of such a roll as well. That could allow for some climbing/jumping/swimming actions during the attack. It might be a nice boost to the sword schools to do that. I think I'll adopt it as a house rule.

Energy damage may have better crit effects, depending on what you want to do to someone. Spend 50xp to always be able to choose to do energy type damage on standard attacks with your sword school weapons. Not bad.

The teleport isn't stackable, but it's pretty awesome. I'd personally allow that immedately before to give a +1k0 or something advantage on the attack roll for popping in right behind someone, at least the first time. And you can always do one where you get to scream "Death from above!", since higher ground is +1k0 anyways.

I'm not sold on that level 5 ability though. 2k2 is a bit low, the +4 (200xp) cost is a bit steep, and you aren't moving on standard attacks or called shots unless there's a pretty good stunt going on.

[Cluedrew]

That is actually a pretty good way to create special abilities for martial types and have them not feel like spells, because they use a different base system. Or maybe in the end they do. Haven't tried it but it is a cool idea.

Yeah not much of significance to say. Mostly I'm just posting as a check in to let you know I am still reading and still enjoying this little series.

[Lord Torath]

When you were building you Called Shot sword move, you added +1k0 twice, and +0k1 once, then took restriction -1k0 twice. Do those cancel out, leaving you with a net +0k1? Could you save XP by just taking the +0k1, instead of advantages and restrictions that cancel each other out?

[Telok]

When you were building you Called Shot sword move, you added +1k0 twice, and +0k1 once, then took restriction -1k0 twice. Do those cancel out, leaving you with a net +0k1? Could you save XP by just taking the +0k1, instead of advantages and restrictions that cancel each other out?

The called shot attack has a -2k0 penalty built into it. So using 4 points of advantages for +2k1 sums to rolling at your regulat attack plus 0k1.

[Telok]

Great good grief, not having my usual double spellcheckers was terrible wasn't it? Well I suppose that's what I get for using paid commercial products for my typing.

Devoted spirit sword school.
L1: flails and aid another actions. Ok, so flails have the nice property of not being able to be parried, but a downside of less overall awesome weapons available & damage done. Aid another, it mentions that the attack related benefits apply to the aided attack. Coordinate with another melee combatant and that could get nasty, you aiding them on their manoeuvrer and they on yours. Like.
L2: -2 restriction - make an alignment check with a +2 bonus as part of the manoeuvrer. Hm. The peasant class gets the luck feat and the paladin class track gets pure faith (+2 on alignment checks) and devoted spirit. Plus there's always hero points for a reroll.
+1 or +3 advantage - heal an adjacent ally for one or two points of damage. Not stackable. Does not require that attack to hit, it's just a result of the manoeuvrer. Yes, two people coordinating could get very nasty very fast.
L3: -1 restriction - add a medicae + wisdom roll in addition to the attack roll to hit.
+2 advantage - I quote: "If you roll a 10 on damage with this attack, roll an additional 2 dice for the exploding die instead of just one." Ow.
L4: +1 advantage (stackable) - an adjacent ally gets +2 static defence, may be split between any/all adjacent allies.
Bonus - get +4 hit points. That's like 400xp worth of sound constitution feats there.
L5: +4 advantage - if the attack hits the head or gizzards get bonus damage equal to your devotion. Excuse me? I fart in your general direction? You're level 5 and paid 400xp to get access to this ability, which will cost another 200xp to stick into a manoeuvrer. Take a +2k0 damage and the level 3 double explosion dice instead, save yourself 400xp for more manoeuvrers or something.

Well it definitely benefits from allies. As long as you have the Pure Faith feat that L2 restriction isn't bad, your minimum is 5. Weirdly that means that it's a worse choice for Chosen exalts because they want to have a high devotion score but for anyone with a 5 devotion it's basically free.

Double exploding damage dice and +4 hit points are very nice indeed.

The level 5 ability is, this time, complete crap. The absolute best it does is +10. 7k3 gives 40/50/60 percentiles at 25/26/29, while 8k4 (7k3+1k1) gives 32/34/37 which means 200xp of standard universal advantages is equal to about +8 and has been available since level 1. Or hey, 10k3 & +2 pen gets you... ok only +3 to +5 before ignoring 2 more points of armor. Right, checked. going from 6k4 to 10k4 is an increase of 7 to 8, going from 8k2 to 10k3 is a +10, 5k2 to 6k3 is an increase of 7 to 9. I'd have to modify my die roller program to accommodate the double explosions, which may not happen.

That's a pretty good sword school as long as you don't take the capstone.

Diamond mind sword school.
L1: fencing weapons and feint manoeuvrers. The attack after the special manoeuvrer feint may not itself be a special manoeuvrer, but it can be any kind of regular attack. Fencing weapons just all get +1k0 to parrying and not amazing damage (2k2, 3k2, like flails).
L2: -2 restriction - this move can only be used as a opportunity attack or a delayed action. Interesting, that's a sort of bonus on the L1 and it gives you more advantages to play with.
+2 advantage - +5 to parry until the start of your next turn. Pleasant, if not amazing. Not sure it's worth a full +2 though.
L3: -1 restriction - the scrutiny + composure in addition to the attack roll.
+3 advantage (stackable, but at +3 not very stackable) - Oh, just right out get an extra attack. No resource expenditure needed. Well, ok. That's worth the +3.
L4: +4 advantage - if the attack hits the target makes a dexterity check vs. 20 or drop anything they're holding.
Bonus - after a feint you can use any sort of attack. Oh, up until now apparently it could only be a standard attack after a feint.
L5: +2 advantage (stacking) - targets hit by this attack lose a resource point. You can stack this one up to 5 times. Not bad, even if it only really works against exalt type entities. They're the dangerous ones any ways.

So at level 3 you can drop 450xp on a manoeuvrer. Once a scene, on an opportunity attack, make a scrutiny check, then make 4 attacks at +1k0 damage. Hmmm, level 3, say 3 strength & composure, 4 weaponry & scrutiny skills, a phase sword... Opp attack provokes -> 7k3r1 scrutiny vs. static defense (avg. 28) -> 4 attacks at 6k4r1 (move the -1k0 penalty from damage to the attack roll, still avg. 32) -> each hit does 6k2 rending & penetration 7 (avg. 18 & ignores anything less than full plate @ AP 8) -> three hits... drops an elite soldier in carapace armor to 0 HP & crit 1 or 3, gives a lesser incarnate daemon a crit 3 or 4, and a greater loses 1/3rd of it's HP (probably more, almost half, since it has a static defense of 14).

Hm, level 4 and some exalts get to take full actions as a half action (or just an extra half action). You could manage a feint and then a dual wield multi-attack for lots and lots of stabbing.

Good sword school. Who gets it? Ah, bard and rogue class tracks.

Iron heart sword school.
L1: ordinary weapons and the aim action. Like diamond mind the attack for the aim action manoeuvrers can't be another manoeuvre. Aim however does not stipulate that you have to do a standard attack afterwards.
L2: -2 restriction - minus 10 static defense until the start of your next turn.
+2 advantage - the attack becomes tearing (minimum one wound as long as it penetrates armor).
L3: -1 restriction - perception check as part of the attack.
+2 advantage - the attack does explosion typed damage. Well that's nastier crits than impact and rending.
L4 +4 advantage - the weapon is effectively a power weapon for the attack.
Bonus - all attempts to dodge or parry your attacks (actually worded as "all responses") get -1k0 dice.
L5: +5 advantage - the attack cannot be dodged or parried. Just suck up the damage you poor bugger.

Not bad, not amazing, mostly just type enhancements to your attacks. The level 5 is nice, you can drop 250xp to say that all your standard attacks can't be dodged or parried. I'm not too impressed with tearing, and making things power weapons. Those are a touch niche and not really anything very impressive.

Setting sun sword school.
L1: unarmed attacks and fighting defensively (-1k0 attacks, +1k0 dodge & parry).
L2: -2 restriction - may only use the manoeuvre as part of a grapple.
+2 advantage (stacking) - on a hit the target takes a level of fatigue, even of they don't take damage. That could get harsh, although there are things immune to fatigue.
L3: -1 restriction - deceive check as part of the attack roll.
+2 advantage - anyone damaged by the attack takes +1k0 to all rolls until the start of your next turn. A minor debuff.
L4: +4 advantage - the attacks gains the shocking property (constitution vs. 15 or be stunned your next turn).
Bonus - get +5 to initiative. Eh? Going first is nice and this pretty much assures your spot in first place, but it only really helps that first round.
L5: +2 advantage - use the target's weapon as the base damage for the attack. Well. Replace that 1k1 penetration 2 cestus damage of yours with their 2k3 penetration 4 tearing chain axe damage. Not a bad price for it either.

Honestly the shocking property has never done too much in game. I'm sure it works well against constitution 2 creatures, but those are actually kind of rare. The desert wind L2 advantage is better than that L3 debuff, it can last longer. But that fatigue stacking can get nasty fast if your target isn't immune.

[Telok]

Shadow hand sword school.
L1: parrying weapons (knife (can throw), katar (pen 3), main gauche (+1k0 parry)) and the ready action. With the ready action the maneuver bonuses are applied to the standard (non-maneuver) attack that gets triggered.
L2: -2 restriction - the attack can only be used on someone unaware of you or helpless.
+1 advantage - delay the effects of the attack up to one minute later, the target is unaware of the attack until that time. Right, this is obviously the assassination sword school.
L3: -1 restriction - stealth check as part of the attack roll.
+1 advantage (stacking) - increase the range of the attack by 5m. Another 'thrown fist' type thing, probably intended for really long range knife throws.
L4: +3 advantage - the attack gains the flexible property. That's the weapon property that flails have, it makes the attack unable to be parried.
Bonus - attacks with a weapon you drew this turn are at +2k1 to hit. Quick draw feat to the rescue!
L5: +3 advantage - toxic. Constitution save dc15 or take an additional wound. Weak. Pathetic. Sad.

So is it just me or is there a distinct theme of under performing level 5 abilities here?

Well, it's very much a 'knife in the dark' kind of sword school. Not terrible, more average-ish. Just don't insult me by making a 550xp buy (L5 & +3 of abilities) something that I can do by smearing goo on the weapon.

I wonder how far we can push that thrown knife thing. Let's see. Base 5m range... ya know lets use the custom weapon design stuff from book 2 to get a good quality (+1k0 to hit) thrown (10m) penetrating (+2 pen) 1k2 rending damage knife. Level 5 (you sad puppy you, or maybe you're level 5 in a different sword school), once per scene (-2), unaware target & stealth roll (-3), weapon quality plus drawn this round gets us +3k1 to attack, half action... Nah, they're unaware, full action aim before the attack for another +2k0, so that's inaccurate x5 + over extended & non-penetrating (-8). 5 + (5+8) = 18 which gives... A 100m knife throw at an unaware target that's basically at your normal to-hit and damage for a knife. Impressive, although it will run you 900xp to buy the move. Personally... I think I'd just buy a missile launcher and some krak missiles, even if I do lose points on style.

Stone dragon sword school.
L1: two handed weapons (the category, not just weapons that require two hands to use) and bull rush actions... Ok, those don't get used too much and I had to look them up. Half action melee move, opposed strength tests and the aggressor can push 2m plus 2m per raise. No damage, no attack roll either. Aaannnndddd..... It doesn't say how that should work with the maneuver system.
L2: -2 restriction - gain a level of fatigue when using the attack. Ick. Usually. Situationally I could see doing it. Very very situational.
+3 advantage - attack becomes snaring. Have to look that one up, and... dexterity vs. the attack roll or be immobilized, no actions except a half action strength or dexterity check to escape, dc based on weapon quality (normal 15), failure loses your second half action. Now I remember why I don't use it much. My players are almost all dexterity whores and/or took Conjuration 1 (Blink).
L3: -1 restriction - intimidate check as part of the attack roll.
+1 advantage (stacking) - gain 1 armour until the start of your next turn. A bit low there I think.
L4: +6 advantage - "Felling Giants Blow", This had better be worth it. Target's resilience is treated as two lower to a minimum of 1. Ok, worth it.
Bonus - +1 to your resilience if your feet are "firmly planted" on solid earth or rock.
L5: +1 advantage (stacking) - the attack gains blast #, where # is the double number of times you take the advantage.

Who gets stone dragon? This is a good sword school. Ah, the barbarian and paladin classes.

Felling giants. On a resilience 4 target that's double damage, +50% on a resilience 6 target, and still +33% bonus damage on a resilience 8 target. All after armour is subtracted of course.

Weirdly the blast thing would work pretty well with bull rushing. You'd just make opposed strength rolls against everything in the area (including yourself) and everyone gets pushed back. Although you do at least need a target in melee to rush against.

Yeah, good sword school.

Tiger claw sword school.
L1: chain weapons and all out attacks. Great, the chainsaw sword school.
L2: -2 restriction - if you miss or get parried you fall prone. Oh, the chainsaw & prat fall sword school.
+2 advantage - if you hit by +10 double that armour penetration of the attack. Good.
L3: -1 restriction - acrobatic check as part of the attack.
+2 advantage - roll a d10. On a 1 you do half damage, on a 10 you do double damage.
L4: +5 advantage - spend a hero point when using the attack, then "ignore any effects (such as armour) that would reduce damage from it and halve the target's size, rounding up, for the purpose of determining Hit Points lost from the attack's damage." On size 2 targets they lose 1 resilience, size 3 targets lose no resilience, sizes 4 to 6 lose 2 resilience. Weird. But it ignores armour... and goes right through hard cover too. Annoying re-calculations in combat though.
Bonus - after all out attacks you can still use reactions, although at -2k2.
L5: +4 advantage - damage dice explode on 9 & 10. That's about a +5 damage boost at the 50% mark, although the high number tail gets a lot longer on the probabilities (checked with 6k3).

The L4 advantage is generally better then the stone dragon L4 advantage, depending on armour and size. But it suffers from the complexity of the resilience calculation and has that weird thing with the round up at size 3... No, that will reduce a size 3 resilience by 1 on even levels. I initially only checked at levels 1 and 5. Well, it's balanced around spending the hero point any ways. But it would be really too similar to the stone dragon one if it were a flat -2.

The L5 advantage, I checked using 6k3 (chain axe & 4 strength). While the 50% average was a +5 bonus the 90% (the '90% of all rolls are less than this, 10% are equal or higher' measurement) went from 38 to 47 with the end of the tail moving from 102 to 133. So that one-in-a-million damage roll got a +30 boost. On average you'll get the same +5 effect (at 6k3) as adding another kept die of damage. Same difference between 8k4, 8k4x9, and 8k5. If your base damage is 10k5 then doing 10k5x9 is, statistically and slightly (1 to 3 points), better than 10k6. Strangely (and powerfully) synergistic with devoted spirit level 3 and the ability to reroll 1s on damage dice (tiefling, possibly some other way too).

Nice school although I'm calling it the lol-random damage chainsaw prat fall sword school.

White raven sword school.
L1: cavalry weapons (spears really, although lances exist) and charge actions.
L2: -2 restriction - can't use the maneuver unless the target moved (as in walked around or something) since your last turn.
+2 advantage (stacking) - allies get +1k0 (that stacks) to attack your target until the start of your next turn.
L3: -1 restriction - command check as part of the attack roll.
+2 advantage - movement as part of the attack or after it doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.
L4: +3 advantage - targets hit by this attack can't parry or dodge until the start of their next turn. Harsh. Run up, poke, let the next guy unleash the strong damage attack.
Bonus - anyone in melee range of you takes -1k0 to attack your allies.
L5: +5 advantage - targets hit by the attack provoke opportunity attacks. Has potential.

Nice solid teamwork sword school. Available to the fighter track classes and the paladin track classes. Combos well with the devoted spirit sword school.

Well. That's a chapter full of how to become a complete and total melee combat monster.

There's no intermission fluff piece between this chapter and the next one; Backgrounds. Although I'm wondering if I should chuck the book 2 gun kata in here as well. They're thematically linked and mechanically near identical. Plus there are fewer of them.

[QuadraticGish]

I don't see why not.

[The Glyphstone]

How much control do you have over the 'Delayed Effect' clause of the Shadow Hand maneuver? Could you, say, make an attack that delays its effects for 1 minute, then attack again with a 54-second damage delay, then a 48-second delay, down to suddenly landing 10 turns worth of damage to a surprised target at once?

[Telok]

Right-o, gun kata it is.

As for the shadow hand damage delay, I don't see why not since you're just delaying your on-hit effects and not stacking them. But then I'm also inclined to let maneuvers work with ordinary and syrneth firearms too.

Hm. Book 2 also introduces combi-weapons that act as both melee and ranged weapons. That could be an interesting way to mix maneuvers/kata with their off-type weapons. If the DM is willing to flex a bit.

Frankly, comparing this stuff to magic, I have very few compunctions about being generous with interpretations. You're paying more xp for a more limited special effect that's almost impossible to leverage outside of combat. Although, still, overall its safer in the long run than dancing with the warp tables.

I mean, a 50m base range knife throw is nice, as is a quad opportunity attack, or punching someone for five rounds and on round six all their bones break. Those are all nice. They still ain't 40m almost at-will teleporting with a laz cannon tucked under your arm, or summoning a 8k4 in any skill spirit/critter to do your bidding. So I tend towards being generous in my interpretations here.

Plus I can always slap a few sword schools on a monster and build it a fun signature move because monsters don't pay xp. The players like those too, fun monsters.

[Telok]

Ok, no spell checking again, but with the content of this post I don't think that will matter much. Spelling is the least of my issues with this one.

Gun kata. From book 2 comes the ranged combat companion to the maneuvers in the first book.

They're mechancially nearly exactly the same as the sword schools. It's gunslinger level instead of initator level, trick shots instead of maneuvers, etc., etc. But other than the name changes it's all the same. Except. The sword school maneuvers are explicitly noted to not work with ranged weapons and there's something that the gun kata trick shots don't work with. I, personally, ignore that as a DM because the only overlap is in ordinary & syrnth weapons and I don't find the maneuver boosts to be problematic. In fact I think that the gun kata existing sort of prove that it's not a problem. Plus it lets the guardsman & fighter class tracks (both get iron heart which applies to ordinary weapons) have native access to, effectively, gun kata. Now gun kata not only don't apply to melee weapons, but they also don't apply to blast and flame weapons. So you can't use them with grenade launchers, missile launchers, or flamers. That's something I missed in the beginning, one of my players took a single level of a gun kata class to get a single level of gun kata, to apply... Well, I'll mention it when we get there.

Notably while the sword schools have some weak spots (like a bunch of lousy capstone moves for some reason) they aren't anything that I'd seriously consider to cause problems. There's at least two bits in the gun katas that I don't quite feel the same way about. Again, we'll get there.

Building trick shots works exactly the same as building maneuvers. Costs the same amount of xp, uses the same rules. They also have the same universal advantages and restrictions available. However, unless specifically noted all gun kata work with all ranged weapons (except blast wepons and flamers).

Clay pigeon gun kata.
L1: Called shots can be used with trick shots.
+1 advantage - the attack does not expend ammunition. This is one of the ones that gets iffy for me. I accidentally let it apply to missile launchers. That was a problem. Weirdly I would not have a problem with flamers or grenade launchers, just the missile launchers. Ah, well. I'm not sure about this one except that I feel that it comes too early and too cheaply.
L2: -1 restriction - the attack can only be used with pistols. So here's a thing that's different from sword schools. And it's definitely more powerful as you can apply any gun kata to any gun without restriction.
+2 advantage - on a hit the target drops anything they're holding.
L3: -1 restriction - make a performance check as part of the attack roll. Same as with maneuvers, DC is the target's static defense and failure means that you failed/missed the shot.
+1 advantage - on hit the targets are knocked prone.
L4: -1 restriction - the attack does no damage. It's a lousy restriction, you'll only use it with needlers which tend to underperform anyways if you aren't using them for sniping. Webbers have a blast radius. Maybe you really care about bolas for some reason?
Bonus - you can use ballistics + dexterity to parry ranged attacks instead of weaponry + dexterity. Except that ranged attacks can't normally be parried without a stunt and parrying uses weaponry + level(if proficient). So, editing mistake. Probably something left in from an earlier draft?
L5: +2 advantage - the attack ignores cover and concealment. Now, since we don't have quite the same level of precise definition as some games, and cover works a bit differently anyways, I would have appreciated a little more... Specificity? In what exactly this is supposed to mean.

Overall... Well you really really like level 1. Auto-disarm at level 2 is pretty good. After that I'm rather unimpressed untill level 5, and that's only because the level 5 ability is only a +2 advantage. In a sword school that's likely closer to a +4 advantage.

Dip-tastic. Probably not worth it for the long haul.

Crisis zone gun kata.
L1: First, no penalty for firing heavy wepons without bracing them (it's a half action). Pretty good.
Second, use trick shots with suppressing fire actions. Suppression is basically shooting vs DC 20 along a 45 degree spread at a kill zone. People in there make pinning (willpower, semi-fear like) tests and failure makes then have to move towards cover, plus some attack penalties. You also randomly tag one person plus another per +10 on the shooting roll. Great for breaking up formations of regular troops.
L2: -1 restriction - can only be used with heavy wepaons.
+1 advantage - if you hit allies who also hit can use the same hit location that you rolled.
L3: -1 restriction - roll tech use in addition to the attack roll.
+1 advantage (stacking) - weirdly this is written as a +X advantage, which is the same as a +1 stacking advantage. Targets hit by the attack have -1 penalty to their armor rating for one round. So, start of your next turn, end of your next turn, end of the round, the rest of this round and all of next round? And does it apply to this hits damage or does it apply after the hit? DM choices. Me? untill the beginning of your next round and applied to this hit's damage (so functions like extra penetration on this hit).
L4: +1 advantage - turn the ROF of a full auto weapon into the blast radius of the weapon. Doesn't make it an explosion though. So high ROF weapons could hit more people than rounds shot with this. Yes a ROF 10 full auto from a regular machine gun ends up with a 20m diameter blast that does regular impact damage from bullets to anyone/anything is the area, even of there are 40 people in there. Well, it's no crazier than how the minion rules work out sometimes.
+2 advantage - Ah, no bonus on this gun kata. On a hit the target loses a half action off of their next turn. Rough.
L5: +4 advantage - instead of full auto damage increasing by +1k0 per round that hits you get +2k0 per round that hits. Great if you can stick ten rounds on target, not so much if you can barely hit or have a ROF of 2 (double barreled shotguns use the full-auto rules, which works out ok).

So we've broken the bonus ability at level 4 pattern. This is a pretty good gun kata, although like clay pigeon the level 1 ability is great, 2 & 3 are kind of 'eh, whatever', and the end ones are ok to pretty good.

Elemental gearbolt gun kata.
L1: Choose your damage type when shooting. Just, you know, choose something, like, on the fly as you need it.
Use trick shots with multi-attack actions. That's dual weilding, double tap, fan the hammer, and I can't think of any others off the top of my head.
L2: -2 restriction - can only use primitive ballistic weapons with the attack. This actually includes muskets and other basic blackpowder firearms. Hm. There were blackpowder organ guns right?
+1 advantage - for each 1 that you roll on damage half the damage total, for each 10 double it. This doesn't say kept dice, so that's rolled dice? Tieflings reroll ones on damage rolls. How do you count those?
L3: -1 restriction - arcana roll as part of the attack roll.
+1 advantage (stacking) - again written as a +X advantage. The attack has no damage roll. For each point of this advantage the target loses that many wounds. Yeah, turn that 2k2 zero armor penetration pocket plinker into a "ignore armor and resilience, take 10 wounds" gun. Wait... We got up to a +18 on the knife throw maneuver. Yeah, this is a level 3 +1 advantage and I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
L4: -1 restriction - double the target's armor versus this attack. Hello, did you see what you gave us last level?
+1 advantage - if you miss, reroll the attack once. Nice, but what's that "once" doing in there? Did this stack at one point? Or is it not supposed to stack with other reroll abilities?
L5: +4 advantage - on a hit the traget begins bleeding. Which is a fair nasty condition, this is what I expect of a level 5 +4 advantage. Still, level 3 blows it away.

Power creep much? You'll take this to level 3, probably 4, not that level 1 wasn't pretty good already. Don't bother with level 5, just buy more "ignore all armor and resilience" from level 3 and blow holes through tanks. Right. After an errata for the spells I'll have to do the sword schools and gun kata too.

Point blank gun school.
L1: No penalties for shooting into melee. It wasn't a real harsh penalty anyways.
Use full auto with trick shots. Except of course that this isn't the full auto shooting gun kata, that was crisis zone.
L2: -1 restriction - the attack may only be used in melee.
+1 advantage - a target hit by this attack gains a level of fatigue. Good.
L3: -1 restriction - athletics roll as part of the attack roll.
+1 advantage - you may force a target hit by the attack to move in any direction. Up to their base speed of course. Nasty if there are cliffs or bottomless pits around.
L4: Bonus - you can parry using a gun and the ballistics skill instead of a the weaponry skill. I already allow the parry with a gun thing, but I have a check for damage to the gun unless it's a pretty good stunt.
Bonus bonus - What, they stole the crisis zone level 4 bonus and put it here? You can use basic typed weapons in melee combat... Ah, ok. The basic weapon proficency covers ordinary, laz, and primitive ranged weapons. Nope, nope, I was wrong. It's all non-pistol and non-heavy weapons... which would then include the thrown weapons that aren't explode(grenades).
L5: +4 advantage - make an extra unarmed attack as part of the attack. Well I hope you're a good strong brawler.

Yes take level 1, maybe 2. Ok, take level 3 if your DM likes bottomless pits and hazards. Otherwise... Meh? And not a single thing is particularly thematic with full auto attacks.

Silent scope gun kata. Sniper boy, you're up.
L1: Reduce the long and extreme range penalties by one die.
Use aim actions with trick shots.
L2: -2 restriction - may only use the attack if the target is unaware of you. Echos of shadow hand anyone?
+1 advantage - the attack gains the tearing property. So it does a minimum of one wound if it penetrates armor.
L3: -1 restriction - make a perception roll as part of the attack roll.
+1 advantage - the attack gains the accurate property. that's the hunting rifle, long laz, and needler property that makes then sniper weapons. Full round aim gains an additional +0k1 and for every +10 that you hit by you get +1k1 damage. I don't recall off the top of my head if you have to aim in order to trigger the bonus damage or if it's just there.
L4: +1 advantage - you can make a stealth roll at -2k1 after the attack. This can get weird if you're doing it at point blank with a shotgun while they're facing you. You'd need a shrub to hide behind or something anyways.
Bonus - get +1k0 to hit someone with ranged attacks if you missed them last turn.
L5: Bonus - For each full round you spend studying the target, for up to three rounds, you get +1k0 damage. What, like, permanently? Next shot? Plus this isn't a trick shot, it's a character ability. So, grenades and melee too?

Tin star gun kata.
L1: +2 initative. Look up there at the level 5 silent scope ability... That bit that says 'bonus'? that's me classifying stuff. By the book this initative and that damage boost are the same sort of thing.
Use trick shots with readied actions. Just like the sword school one, the readied action can't be a trick shot. Although if you can cross trick shots and maneuvers then I suppose "RAW" (as hilarious as that concept is in this game) you could ready a maneuver. You'd need to qualify the weapon and/or attack as both ranged and melee, but there's options for that.
L2: -1 restriction - you can only use the attack if you've lost half or more of your hit points.
+1 advantage - Quote: "The dice for this attack explode on +9." Attack, damage, associated skill rolls... Everything?
L3: -1 restriction - roll scrutiny as part of the attack roll.
+1 advantage - the attack ignores penalties from environmental effects, effects from damage, and having allies in melee withthe target. Cover (not a penalty, except maybe it can be)? The crits that blew off your hands and melted your eyes (definitely a damage effect)? Concealment (and to what extent, "I think he's in that room somewhere!")? I mean, smoke, rain, shaking, pain, fatigue, dazzled, those are all ok by me. Well actually dazzled isn't usually from damage. Does being hit with a webber count as part of the environment? Unsure.
L4: Bonus - reload any gun as a free action. Nice. This is good.
Bonus bonus -Again!? Choose a 'worthy foe' (no actual limits on worthy-ness) per combat and get +2k0 to attack them. If you attack anyone lese of any of your allies attack the foe you lose the bonus. Again, as a character ability... you verbially attack people in social combat. Actually I think I'd be ok with that.
L5: +4 advantage - Quote: "Add your dexterity as unkept dice with this attack." Well if you aren't keeping them then they don't matter do they!? Fast errata -> "Add your dexterity as rolled dice on the attack and damage of this attack." Because I think it's be nice to know what you're adding those dice to.

Dude. You had a good framework with the sword schools. Several of these are just outright messes, and some are pure power creep. I can understand the lack of deep play-testing but... elemental gearbolt level 3... ignores armor and resilience.

<Sigh> Ok, ok. After the read through I'll open an errata thread for the magic schools, sword schools, and gun kata. I'll even translate my java language dice roller into html and javascript so it will be a web page that anyone can download use in their browser.

In fact, quickie preview of intended gun kata errata: Clay pigeon L1: pistols and called shots. Crisis zone L1: burst capable weapons and the full auto attack, maybe suppressing fire too. Elemental gearbolt L1: primitive weapons and multi-attack actions. Point blank L1: basic typed (not pistol, not heavy) guns, overwatch & delayed actions (hrm, the actions on this and crisis zone are making more sense now, unsure). Silent scope L1: accurate weapons and aim actions. Tin star L1: exotic & ordinary weapons, readied actions.

[lightningcat]

I never really understood the how and why of the Sword Schools (and/or Gun Katas) before. I had all the information, but in the several read throughs, it just never clicked. These are straight up out of a anime martial arts. I knew they were based on the Book of Weabo Fighting Magic, but it never clicked. For some reason I was trying to slot them into video game combo attacks, instead of anime shouted named attacks. Ah, the holes we can have in our understanding.

[The Glyphstone]

The Shadow Sun delayed attack actually makes me think of Fist of The North Star - I think that's the one. Delay your massively damaging hit long enough to tell the enemy that they're already dead.

[Lord Torath]

Shadowrun had a couple of Physical Adept powers that let you to achieve this as well. Delay Damage did what it says on the tin, for up to 24 hours after your attack. If you paid for the higher-level of this ability, your attack wouldn't even look like an attack. Distance Strike let you inflict damage from a distance. Combine the two for a deadly attack on someone who wouldn't even know you'd attacked them until they suddenly dropped dead some time later.

[Telok]

As I recall AD&D monks had the whole quivering palm thing too.

Generally it's a framework for building your own special moves. I never had an issue understanding it, but I also have a job turning arcane and convoluted rule sets into rational computer instructions and readable database entries. I generally find that worked examples help the most, ones with explanations of each decision as you go step by step through it.

Backgrounds

Spoiler the rehash of the stuff I wrote back in character creation.
Step Five: Backgrounds. Start with stuff, status, allies, etc. You get 7 points and can't go above three in any one background during this step. These are actually important because they have real effects outside of combat (sometimes in combat too). Most people will be tempted to go with artifacts (magic items), wealth($$$), inheritance(extra stuff). But we've been learning that beyond putting a couple points in wealth the other stuff, allies, contacts, backing, status, followers, etc., is actually very relevant outside of combat. My players are sort of flailing around for how to do stuff because they are essentially rich, social pariah, mercenaries. It turns out that if you pretty much go with the default setting that there are social networks and knowing a guy who knows a guy is really quite useful. That said, holdings can get you a major spaceship or super-tank.

It's also important to note that the players need to actually READ the backgrounds and think about them. One of my players just wrote down "Contacts:1". It came up every so often and I'd ask "Who is your contact?". I finally decided, based on some of the other backgrounds, that there's a sort of 3d graph of these things with the axis being availability, power, and response on a five point scale. Total the axis to rating*5, nothing can be less than 1. So his generic "contact" is availability 3 (widespread but not ubiquitous) + power 1 (general info, no specifics) + response 1 (you can look things up and maybe ask questions that might be answered sometime this year). Which works out to something like a subscription to an exclusive news/encyclopedia organization or a secret Wikipedia for particular kinds of information. He has access in any civilized place with a public or semi-public computerized information network, but it provides information about people, events, and stuff, there's no asking a specific question and getting a reliable answer any time soon. This is a framework that I wouldn't use if he'd written anything down, it pretty much amounts to roll 1d10 once in a while and if it's 5+ you get a little bonus info bit. Essentially, if the player picks something like allies or backing, they need to actually say something about them or the DM just makes them up as it suits them. Which could turn out to be near useless for the character if circumstances change.
Intro paragraphs say that the backgrounds tie a character to the world, represent social networks, and at least some thought ought be given to what your background represent. Also, while you can only buy backgrounds during character generation you can get them during the game. Either by making it a point to do stuff to earn the backgrounds or book 2 has a class path where the class completion bonus is another point in one of certain backgrounds. This will generally apply more to stuff like allies and fame than artifacts and inheritance. Those are (usually) just loot.

Allies: close friends, trusted companions, usually exalted, could be a daemon that owes you a debit, intelligent animals, rogue AIs, etc. Never a nameless, faceless mook type NPC. They're people with their own lives. They'll help, but not usually risk their lives, and often want something in return. Really needy/greedy characters can lose allies. Each dot generally represents an ally roughly equal to a starting level exalted character, or you can get a stronger ally for more dots. If someone wants to take a dot or two in this for a couple exalt friends who mostly stay aboard your spelljammer and have high arcana skills, maybe some healing spells, and mostly they just play navigator and doctor with only rare appearances for fights... Sure. Maybe a semi-psycho who is willing to occasionally provide technical and fire support when boarding enemy ships. I'm cool with that. But you get them convicted of piracy from your botched attempt and dragged along to Carceri with you where they nearly die a couple times? They'll say that you owe them. I'd also be cool with taking one of the monsters/opponents from the bestiary chapter at, probably, ally rating equal to their level for the actually dangerous ones. Probably one less for the no-so-tough NPCs. So... ally 5 for a young dragon, 4 for an aboleth, 3 for an arch-heretic (approximately a L2 or L3 chosen no-class), but only 2 for a mind flayer (L3 monster but not actually real tough or amazing on it's own), or even ally 1 for a lesser incarnate daemon if you've got a good reason (L2 monster but surprisingly not that nasty).

Artifacts: Magic items. There's a whole chapter on them that starts with some discussion about how you may or may not want to deal with them in your game. Generally they have a certain level of plot immunity, like character defining stuff that you buy with points in supers games. If you're just rich and buy cars, planes, and boats the DM is free, encouraged even, to blow them up with reckless abandon. You buy the Batmobile with character points and the DM doesn't get to just 'nope' 20% of your character abilities forever. Any how, this background can be purchased multiple times, once per artifact, but only to a total of five points (it makes a difference because in character generation you can only get up to three points in a background without spending xp at 100xp per point). Essentially one point will get you an artifact knife, fire starter, or tracking dart. Five points gets you an artifact man portable laz cannon or power armor.

Backing: You're a high muckety-muck in some organization. Military, religious, governmental, mafia, an organization. Comes with duties and/or responsibilities, but also support in a variety of ways. Backing 1 is a minor functionary or officer of some sort. Backing 5 is one of the leaders, a general or admiral, a Sigil faction Factol, a major sector governor for an empire (or heir to the throne I guess?). You need to talk with the player/DM about this, some things don't mesh well with random murder-hobo play styles.

Contacts: Similar to allies but they absolutely won't put their lives on the line and they won't do anything for free. Each dot is a major contact that you know personally, high ranking military officers, influential faction members, rock stars. Those dots also represent a sort of overall "know someone who knows someone" type of things, you can roll contacts + charisma or fellowship or whatever is relevant for information and minor help.

Fame: What it says on the tin. One dot is a select subculture (bagpipe polka death metal! or perhaps that's too select), five is fame that reaches across multiple crystal spheres. You should probably decide just what you're famous for, lest you risk being famous for being famous and having a number of rude jokes made about you.

Followers: Your loyal minions. Ok, loyal as long as they're reasonably well paid and housed. A good dental plan helps too. They're mere mortals who need backing, wealth, or holdings (or a combination of) equal to the number of dots in followers. One dot is about 5 people, your little entourage. Five is an army 10,000 strong.

Holdings: Real property or a spelljammer. Home sweet home. Requires upkeep so you need followers, backing, or wealth equal to it in order to keep your holding in good working order. One dot is the smallest of spelljammers, a modest home, or a local business. Five is a kilometer+ long battleship, an enormous palace, or a multi-world megacorp.

Inheritance: Your loot. This is just starting with a thing or things. They're regular things that the DM can explode and not feel bad about. Each dot is one item of a particular rarity, or two of the next lower rarity. One dot is one uncommon item, two common items, or four ubiquitous items. Five is any non-artifact, two mythic rare items, four very rare items, one mythic and two very rare, etc., etc. Nice DMs will offer or allow a replacement item(s) if they intentionally explode, melt, disintegrate, or otherwise nuke your really nice bling into oblivion. Pro tip: Cyberwear & bionic implants are hard to lose.

Mentor: Patron, teacher, defender, friend. Expects some level of obedience but is generally stronger than you are. One dot is someone just a bit more advanced than you are, a sort of big brother/big sister sort of thing. Five dots and you're Merlin's apprentice, or perhaps Palpatine's apprentice.

Status: A slightly odd one perhaps. This is having a reputation among exalts. It's specific to exalts and doesn't include much of anything beyond name recognition and respect. Although respect is a nice thing to have. One dot and exalts you haven't personally met may (or may not) have heard something about you. Five dots makes you a widely respected luminary. Whatever that means. Maybe it's like being Mr. Feynman at a physics convention.

Wealth: Continuing income actually, or perhaps you just always happen to have some cash in your pocket and a credit card with no limit. You should detail it or the DM might decide what it is and you could accidentally blow up that factory you're a part owner of. One dot is 'middle class', so buy a new car every ten years or so? Can always pay for plumbing repairs? Five dots is... a lot. Four and you're a merchant prince, bandit king, or media mogul type character. Basically you use this stat to buy stuff with. Stuff has a rarity (common = 5, very rare = 25) and you roll against that. If the DC is more than five times your wealth you can drain your wealth. Then you roll 1d10 + (1 per 5 over your wealth x5 limit) - (1 per every 5 you beat the DC by) and check a chart. Most of the time your next check is just at a lower wealth rating, so go buy something cheap (but to too cheap or the DM may get annoyed, play the game don't game the play). On a 10 you permanently lose a wealth, on 11+ you lose two.

And that's backgrounds.

[Telok]

So looking back on backgrounds I see some things. There are, to me, two axis. Solid <-> squishy, takes work <-> effortless. The solid/squishy axis is about how immediate, obvious, and quantifiable something is for the player.

From most solid to most squishy: 1) artifacts, 2) [inheritance, holdings], 3) [wealth, backing, followers], 4) [allies, contacts, mentor], 5) fame, 6) status. 1 & 2 are (in game) physical objects/things that are a major enough part of a character to have at least some level plot immunity and attach directly to rules that the players often use. You know what your artifact sword does, what your inherited best quality power armor does, what capabilities your spelljammer has. 3 & 4 are less defined, #3 has rules and #4 may all have an npc character sheets but the DM is ultimately running a bunch of npcs that aren't under the players' control. 5 & 6 are social effects with no direct rules interactions plus you should remind the DM occasionally as they'll likely forget after that five session dungeon crawl that ended in an exterminatus on the colony sending the distress call.

From the effortless to taking work: 1) artifacts, 2) [inheritance, wealth]. 3) [holdings, followers], 4) [allies, contacts], 5) [backing, mentor], <undefined>) [fame, status]. 1 to 3 is just pick one and you have it, 2 & 3 requiring just not making decisions that obviously risk losing them. 4 & 5 require interacting with DM run npcs and getting them to do what you want. #5 adds in the fact that you're expected to do things for the organization/person every so (possibly very) often. Fame and status are, of course not only DM dependent but also dependent on you as a player. Their nature, and thus the effort required to use or upkeep them, depends on what you decided when you took them. If you took status 4 and said that it's because you throw lots of amazing exalt-only parties on special neutral territory places, you may (DM depending of course) need to keep throwing those parties in order to keep the status and (DM depending again) your status might not extend much beyond staging and keeping the peace at said parties. That would make using that status 4 rather difficult and uncommon.

So if you're DMing and you haven't successfully hammered into the players at sessions -2, -1, 0, and +1, that you're trying to be fair, reasonable, and player empowering... Then you're going to see lots of stuff at 1 & 2 on those axis, with a smattering of 3s. And it'll be worse if the players don't read or think about the backgrounds that they choose. Of course as a player I've gotten the other end of the stick too, DMs who ignore, deny, forget, or flat out violate both backstory and mechanical background rules on your characters. I get why, as a player, it feels like such a risk to take anything but artifact, inheritance, and wealth on a character. It's just that when you tell the players that you're trying to make fame 4 or mentor 5 just as useful and strong as a darksteel bionic heart or a rod of lordly might, you'd like to see something more than everyone just dumping all their backgrounds in to wealth and magic weapons.

Ah well. Rant over. Let's do alignment. Interestingly this is one place where the second book not only goes into more detail but is a distinct improvement over the first book.

So alignment was basically pick a god to align yourself with. The last three pages of this chapter is just short descriptions of those alignments. Book 2 expands this into a full page per god, including a list of things that call for alignment checks and two major groups/churches/cults for each one, in addition to adding options for being unaligned, aligning with an entire pantheon, and adding three more minor deities. If you're going to really use alignment or play a chosen exalt they you want to use the book 2 stuff.

Before that though we start with a suggestion to check with the other players to avoid total alignment incompatibility in the group. Remember, this is a game where you can be an "fairness, honor, & glory in fighting" worshipper of Khorne and Cuthbert has a literal organized lynching cult. Five PCs who all worship Malal could be hilarious.

Talk about your devotion score, starts at 6, buy it up with xp. If you go against your alignment roll a d10, if you meet or exceed your devotion nothing happens. Roll under devotion and you lose a point (unpleasant as they run 50xp times your current number to get a new one, half that if you have the feat from the second level of the cleric class track). If you lose a point of devotion and your new devotion score is 6 or less roll the d10 again against the new score. Again, if you roll equal or higher to the score nothing else happens. Roll under and you get a degeneration.

The degeneration is linked to the point/level of devotion that you gained it at. So when you lose your 5th point of devotion and go down to 4, if you pick up a degeneration it's on the 4th dot of your devotion. That degeneration will go away if you raise your devotion back up to 5. You can't double up on degenerations, you reroll untill you get a new one. If you get one of the degenerations that reduces an attribute by a point it has the additional effect of preventing you from raising that attribute untill you clear out the degeneration.

Hitting devotion zero is like hitting insanity 100, the character becomes an insane psycho NPC. Or dead, or mutated into something horrid and people eating. Ok, so there are exalts that are psycho, dead, and mutated horrible people eaters. This is supposed to be, somehow, you know... worse. Apparently you can only gain one point of devotion at a time. No mention of when that time is or how often it comes around. It's also nice to attach some roleplay to raising your devotion, like an atonement ceremony or something, but it's not absolutely required.

Changing alignment is simple, although wreathed in fluff and roleplay talk, but you can only do it once. To be sure, I'm not annoyed or anything by the roleplay and fluff since that's mostly what alignment really is. I'm just not going out of my way to type up lots of words about it. So, if you swap gods from within the same pantheon (ruinous powers, blessed pantheon, gray council) you just lose two points of devotion, to a minimum of one. That's it. Apparently the old god has bigger things to worry about and the new one doesn't think you're really trustworthy yet. Switching pantheons is a bit different, but not much. You devotion resets to 4, no questions asked, as the new god is happy to have poached a player from another team. Buy you get tagged with a curse on the way out, you get a roll on the degeneration chart at the 7th devotion point. Which means that you'll have to raise your devotion to 8 (or get an atonement spell) to get rid of it. No mention of what happens if you were at say, devotion 2 with three degenerations before switching. I suppose that since your devotion sort of went up it erases the degenerations at 2 & 3, letting you fix the others by raising devotion as normal.

Hey-o, the horrible mutation & degeneration chart! 16 different afflictions. Attribute reductions account for 9 of them, one per attribute. Remaining are, DM makes you reroll a success to see if it turns into a failure, skin disease for -2k0 on social rolls, an easily concealed minor deformity or mutation (no effect unless revealed?), pick up the Night Terrors hindrance (no free xp, reroll if you already have it), become anorexic and take -2k0 (double penalty) for having fatigue, DM imposed blackouts that turn you into an NPC for the time (no guidance, see classic werewolf/possession movies for inspiration I guess?), and gain a minor derangement from the insanity chapter.

Well the blackouts are probably the worst and/or most risky. As a DM you'll need to be careful with them to not overly screw the PC. The stats have essentially equal chances to screw you or be a minor nuisance, depending on your character and where they land. The others are anywhere from annoying to almost completely inconsequential.

This book has 4 pages of deity write-ups. Nice simple ones, a paragraph on the pantheon, a paragraph on each god, and three bullet pointed things the god likes or dislikes.
Chaos, ok "Ruinous Powers": they don't get along.
Khorne: battle & fighting. 1) blood & violence, 2) no magic, 3) honorable combat - not slaughtering the weak or helpless.
Slaanesh: sex, drugs, rock and roll. 1) new experiences are good, 2) don't blend in - be unique, 3) tempt others to hedonism.
Tzeentch: change, hope, plot, and plan. 1) be willing to change the plan, 2) all the sorcery, 3) follow your own goals.
Nurgle: despair, caring, disease. 1) don't seek help, 2) escape suffering through faith, 3) be nice to the dying.
Malal: blow it all up. 1) hate is strength, 2) the fate of everything is to be destroyed, 3) betrayal works.
Blessed Pantheon: law & order.
Sigmar: civilization & growth. 1) work with others, 2) tame wilderness, 3) seek & build new stuff.
Bahamut: power & rulership. 1) honor & justice, 2) oppose evil, 3) protect the weak & defend order.
Pelor: niceness. 1) alleviate suffering, 2) light into dark places, 3) oppose evil.
Moradin: loyalty & building. 1) be stoic and tenacious, 2) be loyal, 3) make something that lasts.
Cuthbert: trust & promises. 1) never break your word, 2) no fear for you & make enemies fear you, 3) murderize traitors.
Gray Council: generally non-confrontational.
Acererak: magic & secrets. 1) seek perfection, 2) gain, save, & hide knowledge, 3) don't tell all.
Raven Queen: stuff dies. 1) no pity for suffering & dying, 2) punish hubris (no avoiding death), 3) stay neutral.
Luna: change & nature. 1) change for the better, 2) fight for liberty, 3) like nature.
Corellon: excellence. 1) cultivate beauty, 2) seek lost magic items, 3) neither pity nor mercy as you climb to power.
Vectron: whatever. 1) Vectron is best, 2) praising Vecton lets you succeed, 3) convert others to Vectron.

Book 2, as I said, goes more in depth with examples of cults and what causes alignment rolls at leach level of devotion.

We leave off with an interlude piece that shows the benefits of proper planning. Well, ok, more the frustration of planners when you have an impulsive nut bar in the group.

[The Glyphstone]

Did you flip devotion rolls upside down? As you wrote it, it starts at 6 and costs XP to buy up, but the higher you get it the easier it is to fail a check so there is no incentive to ever buy more unless it's to cancel losses.

[tyckspoon]

Did you flip devotion rolls upside down? As you wrote it, it starts at 6 and costs XP to buy up, but the higher you get it the easier it is to fail a check so there is no incentive to ever buy more unless it's to cancel losses.

I think this is supposed to be like the White Wolf 'Humanity'/other Morality stats - the higher your score is, the higher the standard you are supposed to uphold, and the easier it is to fail that standard. From what I've gathered so far the majority of characters do indeed just not care about this stat, and unless they get given a particularly bad degeneracy they're not likely to bother buying it back up should it happen to slip down a couple notches, at which point they probably aren't going to fall much more anyway? (Again, going off the old White Wolf style for this, once you've lost a couple of points of Devotion/Humanity/Moralityscore, you're kind of hardened and inured to Bad Stuff already, and it should take increasingly extreme events to make you test against losing more.. which you're not super likely to run into if you're playing a standard adventure game and not buying all the way into White Wolf's "You get to explore just what it means to be a depraved murderous literal parasite on humankind!" 'artistic' roleplaying thing.)

[Telok]

No that's right.

It's a weak spot, or maybe not. Most characters can just sit on that starting 6 devotion and not care as long as they don't blatantly violate their alignment.

The ones that care are the chosen exalts whose effective power stat is capped at half (round up) devotion. They get some bonuses, and they'll probably take cleric cass level 2 for the half cost devotion buying feat, but they're the ones who care about having it higher than 7. Most other characters will only really care if a degeneration hits ones of the stats they want to raise or they get the blackout one.

Going from 5 to 6 devotion is 250 xp, a chunk but not horrid on it's own unless you're going to risk alignment rolls regularly. And not only is it harder to fall the further down you go, but it gets cheaper to fix. Still, it is rough on chosen exalts to get up and stay at 9. It's 1050xp to go from 6 to 9 devotion, half if you went for the cleric classes, and another 400xp every time you want to go from 8 to 9 again.

I'm not sure quite what to do about it. I think there is a potential issue, mainly related to the chosen and the extra xp they need to up devotion in order to access their higher power stat abilities. Maybe just making it a flat 100xp per devotion? Or halve the cost from 50x current to 25x current (although that puts virgils guidance costs at 12.5x current, really low and odd numbers). I don't feel that the actual mechanic is too ugly, mostly because the alignments are sufficently loose (my opinion of course) that the rolls don't come up often if you're half decent at choosing your alignment (and aren't on the high end of course).

Hm. A chosen with the mentor 5 background has an argument for literally getting semi-regular divine intervention & interference.

Edit: also the healing 3 spell atonement. Not generally a pc spell but not impossible to find a caster for. Alleviates your highest degeneration.

[The Glyphstone]

I think this is supposed to be like the White Wolf 'Humanity'/other Morality stats - the higher your score is, the higher the standard you are supposed to uphold, and the easier it is to fail that standard. From what I've gathered so far the majority of characters do indeed just not care about this stat, and unless they get given a particularly bad degeneracy they're not likely to bother buying it back up should it happen to slip down a couple notches, at which point they probably aren't going to fall much more anyway? (Again, going off the old White Wolf style for this, once you've lost a couple of points of Devotion/Humanity/Moralityscore, you're kind of hardened and inured to Bad Stuff already, and it should take increasingly extreme events to make you test against losing more.. which you're not super likely to run into if you're playing a standard adventure game and not buying all the way into White Wolf's "You get to explore just what it means to be a depraved murderous literal parasite on humankind!" 'artistic' roleplaying thing.)

That was actually what I thought it was riffing on, but the whole WW morality-message grindstone seemed completely out of place with the rest of Acid Trip RPG World, so I wondered if it had gotten backwards.

[Lord Raziere]

That was actually what I thought it was riffing on, but the whole WW morality-message grindstone seemed completely out of place with the rest of Acid Trip RPG World, so I wondered if it had gotten backwards.

the one time I played this game, the morality message thing wasn't brought up once by anyone aside from maybe me and no one seemed to care. If there would ever be a second edition of this game (as if, the very idea is a joke) one should probably get rid of it. so yeah, it seemed mostly put in there to continue riffing on white Wolf's nonsense rather than anything serious.

[Telok]

I'm thinking that 4 pcs all chosen of malal wearing heavy armor and chucking explosives at each other would work, alugnment wise I mean. Play them as happy go lucky clowns that solve all their problems by running up to enemies and playing hot potato with grenades.

You're all teamkilling ftards so throwing explosives at one another is just good clean fun.

Really tzeench, cuthbert, raven queen, and vectron are all easy enough for your traditional murder-hobo type adventurer to run with no real dangers of alignment checks. For the real easy street pick vectron and put on a looped recording of ten/fifteen minutes of silence followed by you saying 'praise vectron!'. That should cover 99% of any alignment issues.

In a year of playing I think I called for 2 alugnment checks, and one may have been for an npc ally.

[Telok]

Money, gun, and lawyers. AKA phat lewt. AKA your stuff.

Welcom to the equipment section, a brief look at stuff and the not-murder-hobo method of acquiring it. For starters better armed and equipped parties thed to survive more. Ya think? Mr. obvious states the obvious much here? I guess if this is your first RPG (including CRPGs) you might, maybe, not have already known or figured that out on your own.

Availability. Everything gets an availability rating. DM modifies by whim and/or logic. Medieval mud holes don't normally have machine guns, shops on backwater planets with 1940's era tech don't normally stock power armor. To get stuff you make a wealth test against the availability. Just at straight wealth vs. DC here, and it notes that yes, wealth zero means you can barely scrounge up enough money for low end food. DCs are tagged under a rarity rating that ranges from ubiquitous (2) and very common (5), to mythic rare (30). If you fail you can always try again but the DC goes up by +5 because you're either going to have to offer more money, buy/snag a family heirloom, or pay someone to steal it from a museum or somewhere. Finding the sales takes time and there's usually more (and better) stuff in bigger cities. We get a chart that has everything from village (<1000 pop. and DC 5 max) to metropolis (>10 million pop. and DC 30) to give us the normal size/DC and it includes a time frame to get stuff from an hour for the DC 5 very commons to 1d10 weeks for the mythic rares. Although if you have your minions fetch it (or hire someone to do the fetching for you) then it takes the next time factor up, with mythic rare cranking up to 1d10 months. At least that's what I think it's saying, we don't get any examples to help in this chapter. It also tells us, again a bit of interpretation, that this is for off-the-shelf stuff. Because it mentions buying a startship and having to wait for it to be built. So I'd say that we're looking at whatever the DM feels is right for custom jobs and bespoke stuff. After all, you spent a d10 hours finding a high quality flashlight, you don't need to wait a week for delivery unless you're doing something weird like mail-ordering from another planet.

You have a soft limit on your buying power of DC = wealth x5. If you buy something more than that (and only if you succeed) you roll a 1d10, add +1 per every 5 above your soft cap and -1 for every 5 you beat the DC by. There's a little chart of the hit that your wealth takes, 1-9 is just you roll one or two fewer dice on your next wealth test, 10 & 11 are permanent losses of 1 or 2 wealth. Anyways not even a wealth 5 person can just fork over money for a mythic rare item without fear of consequences. Just go kill the current owner and take it yourself, that's probably faster and cheaper anyways.

I will note here that I was nice to my players (all low/no wealth characters at the start) and made up my own house rules for resale and "looting" (actually it first came up in a gladiatorial fight prize money sort of event). First I designated loot bundles, essentially each was a free raise (+5) on a wealth roll, but you used it up even on failed rolls or rolls where you went massively over. I did end up needing to limit it to 4 or 5 loot bundles spent on a single roll though, I don't recall off the top of my head which. And it still triggered the wealth limit stuff unless you used enough loot to totally pay for the thing.

For resale I let them have a little bundle per 5 of (item rarity DC - 15) So rare stuff would get you a single loot bundle if you were selling one item. If you had more I went with tripling per +5, so it takes 3 rares to get two loot bundles. I did this with the explicit caveat and consent of the players that if they tried to abuse this it would stop working. I'm considering changing it to rarity DC -10 and moving to an order of magnitude per extra raise (rare = 1 loot, 10 rares or 1 very rare = 2 loot, etc.), but I'm not sure yet. Mostly this is to satisfy their ingrained over D&D/ShadowRun loot&sell habits.

Craftmanship. You can buy stuff that's one rarity cheaper or two rarity levels above the base price. Poor, good, and best quality. This has no defined mechanical impact for anything beyond armor and weapons, but it notes that a 'torch' is commonly a flashlight, a poor quality torch may literally be an oil soaked rag on a stick & set on fire. I presume that a best quality torch could be some sort of voice controlled tachno-magic light ball that floats near you on anti-grav, magic levitation, or some such. Since the result of quality in most things in left to the DM it's in theory possible to just buy all poor quality stuff and get away with it if the DM doesn't care. The book however does note that the DM can invoke poor item quality breakage or failure and/or adjust task DCs because of your gear quality.

Resupply. Reloads, replacements, and repairs are assumed to all be covered under the initial wealth test. You don't have to keep going out and checking if you can buy bolter ammo every week. If you're at a DM approved 'base of operations' (and/or you're slinking around somewhere with enough markets) you get ammo reloads in about a day, special ammo reloads in a week, and broken or lost gear can be replaced in a month. But if you dropped your flashlight when the shadow tentacle monster went all hentai on you just go buy a new one, it's almost certainly faster and easier than fighting with customer service over the terms of the lifetime warranty (even if you will win in the end).

Weapons. Guns! Ammo! Stabination & murderization! It's time for the hurty bits.
First, everything comes with a holster, sheath, sling, carrying case, cleaning kit, etc., unless you bought a poor quality one. Then you have to deal with everyone else teasing you about having to carry everything in your hands and the DM asking what you want to drop in order to catch yourself before you fall off the balcony.

We get the inevitable 'how to read the entries' thing. It has some hidden-ish rules in it. Only melee weapons and pistols can be used in close (melee, natch) combat, and the pistols don't get any range or targeting bonuses in melee. Thrown weapons are as melee weapons for damage, add your strength to the rolled dice except obviously grenades and such explosivs. Actually that may not be obvious, Pazio's StarFinder has a issue where your dexterity determines the save DC of your explosives no matter what you do with them (this includes stuffing live grenades down peoples' pants and making bomb collars for prisoners), but I consider that a comedy game like Paranoia. Basic two handed weapons can be used one handed at -2k0 attack. Heavy weapons always take two hands and have to be braced (half action) before use or you take a -3k1 attack penalty and can't use them on full auto. Range is the default no-penalty range of the weapon, half that is short at +1k0 attack, up to double is long at -5 attack (not dice just a flat penalty), double long range (listed range x4) is the max and you're at -15 attack. Point blank range is within 2m but not in melee and gives +2k1 to hit instead of the short range modifier.

Guns jam. It's further along in the rules but it comes up here in a few places. If you're proficient and you roll more 1s on the attack than your level the gun jams and you have to clear & reload it. Yes you lose the loaded ammo, maybe a nice DM will let you pick up rounds off the ground. Obviously rerolling 1s is a good thing here, but frankly by 3rd level you almost never see jams anyways. If you aren't proficient then rolling any 1s on the attack causes a jam.

Quality Weapons. Poor quality guns get 'unreliable' which halves your level for purposes of counting 1s for jamming. If the gun is normally 'reliable' (jams turn into ordinary misses) then it loses the reliable tag instead. Poor melee weapons have -1k0 to hit. Good quality guns get the reliable tag, no bonus for stacking it so don't buy good quality revolvers. Good melee weapons get +1k0 to hit. Weapons or ammo have to be at least good quality to be made of silver. Best quality guns never jam or overheat. They just flat out don't. If that result manages to come up they just miss instead. Best melee weapons have that +1k0 to attack and do +2 damage.

You can buy ammo at one less rarity then the gun it's for. A common gun has ubiquitous ammo. Since Good quality kicks it up by 5 you can buy silver ammo at the same rarity as the gun. Melta guns don't have silver bullets they blow holes in tanks, quit whining.

Then there's about two pages of the weapon specials. Accurate, flaming, unweildy, tearing. Muh. That's enough for now. I'll think about if I want to list them all or just comment on a few.

[Telok]

Ok, I'm not bothering to detail all the weapon special abilities. Most are either self explanatory or I'll mention them elsewhere. Let's just hit a few highlights.

Accurate: +1k0 to hit when aiming & +1k1 damage per +10 past the targets static defense when aiming. Sniper stuff.
Flame: A 30 degree cone of fire. Don't roll to hit, everyone in it rolls a dexterity save to dodge. DC user dexterity x5 +/-5 for good/poor quality. Targets hit have to make a DC 15 dexterity save to not catch on fire.
Overheats: roll any 9s on damage and choose to drop the weapn or take a hit to the arm holding it (randomly choose one for two handers). You still hit or miss based on the attack roll.
Power field: When parrying or parried by a non-power weapon, non-artifact, non-natural attack, weapon foll a d10. On 4+ the non-power weapon breaks.
Scatter: At range < 2m every +10 over static defense is +1k0 damage. Long & extreme range double armor points on the target.
Shocking: On wounding make s constitution save DC 15 or stunned for a round.
Snare: On hit deterity save vs the to-hit roll or be immobilized and take no other action but escaping. Strength or dexterity, DC 10, 15, 20 based on quality, as a half action and lose your other half action if you fail.
Tearing: Minimum one wound if it gets through armor.

Guns! (proficency in parenthesis)

Ordinary (basic & ranged 1) -> Slug throwers. Ranging from revolvers to SAWs, single shot to full auto only, 30m to 150m ranges. They all do 2k2 or 3k2 damage, hand cannonr and SAW are the only ones with armor penetrtion (3 & 5). Common to rare availability. The hunting rifle is accurate, shotguns scatter. The hand cannon is a big revolver that takes a -1k0 attack penalty when used one handed.

Las (basic & ranged 2) -> Lasers. From las pistol to MP (man portable) lascannon. 2k2 or 3k3 damage except the cannon at 5k5. Pulse rifle has penetration 2, cannon 10 (very good, ignores most armor). Pulse rilfe can do 4 round auto fire, the las rifle can do 3 rounds, cannon has recharge so it's every other round single shots. Ranges from 30m to 300m. All are reliable except the lascannon, the long las is accurate. Hidden in the descriptions is that the pulse rifle is light enough to be used at only a -1k0 penalty single handed instead of the usual -2k0 penalty. The lascannon also has a separate power pack and is "usually crewed by two people", so your probably lugging that around like a backpack.

Plasma & Melta (ranged 2) -> Both come in pistol & basic varieties. Plasema damage is 3k3 & penetration 8, melta damage is 4k3 & penetration 12. Plasmas both have recharge and overheat, although the plasma gun (basic rifle) can do a 'full auto' of 2 shots. Meltas don't have any special notes. Ranges are 10m & 20m for meltas, 30m & 90m for plasma. Everything is very rare except the meltagun (basic). Yes best quality plasma guns are wealth 35, beyond mythic rare. And 2 of them lets you burst fire every round at anything within 360m.

Bolters (ranged 1) -> The iconic space marine gun in pistol, basic, and heavy versions. All 4k2 explodey damage, penetration 6 except the heavy that has 8. ROF from single to S/3 to full auto only 10. Ranges 30m to 120m. The pistol is rare, the others very rare. All have the tearing property. You're pretty much always going to deal at lest one wound but the heavy bolter suprisingly isn't too much more dangerous that the SAW.

Syrneth (ranged 2) -> Ancient weirdo guns looted out of dusty tombs and wrecks that just happen to work perfectly. We have the heavy Null Ray and the basic Lightning Gun. Nuller is a glossy black rifle that shoots crackling purple beams at 6k3, pen freaking "you have no armor" 20, single shot, 10m range, 4 ammo, and has to recharge. Meltagun, meet super-melta. The lightning gun is a tame 4k2, pen 4, ROF S/2, 30m range, 6 ammo, with scatter and shocking. Interestingly hidden down in the description is that null rays can't be duplicated by current magi-tech. Each one is looted from an ancient ruin or something.

Exotic (ranged 1) -> Neelders and webbers, because non-lethal is exotic for PCs. Each comes in pistol and basic versions. Neelders do 2k2 rending damage, single shots out to 30m and 180m, 6 ammo, very rare, with both accurate and toxic properties. I let players swap out the toxic for any drug you can buy in liquid form. The webbers do no damage, range at 30m & 50m, are rare, and only have one round clips. They both snare but the 'heavy' webber (the name is heavy, the gun is basic) also has blast 5 to cover a 10m diameter area. Down in the descriptions it says that needlers make virtually no sound and hace no muzzle flash, supposedly they accelerate needles coated in viral toxins on low powered laser beams. Also neelders are noted as being next to useless against armored targets. Webber stick-um breaks down on it's own in 1d10 rounds for the pistols, and 1d5 hours for the rifles.

Flamers (ranged 2) -> Are not exotic probably purely because they use a different proficency than the exotics. You got your pistol and basic versions, both doing 3k2 damage, 4 & 6 penetration, single shots, 10m & 20m, 3 ammo each, pistol is very rare while the basic flamer is just rare. Both, obviously, are flame weapons.

Primitive (basic & ranged 1) -> Bows, crossbows, hand crossbows, muskets, slings, and bolas. You're look at bottom of the barrel stuff here, almost. The crossbow and musket throw 3k2, slings 1k1, bows 2k2. Nobody has any penetration and they're all single shots. 15m to 30m base ranges. Bows are reliable and a free action to reload, slings just get the free reload so apparently they jam. Muskets are unreliable and inaccurate, plus 5 full rounds to reload, ouch. Bolas are thrown, inaccurate, snares that do no damage. No, nobody is really expecting you to use these except in extremis. Slings can be used to up-range grenades.

Launchers (ranged 1) -> Come in basic grenade or heavy missile, ammo sold separately. The GL has a 60m range, single shot, 6 ammo, and can be fired indirectly although there aren't any actual rules on that. Missile launchers are one shot, one ammo, out to 200m base range. So they max out at 800m. The only thing that exceeds them is the MP lascannon with it's 300m base range.

Grenades & Missiles (thrown, apparently that includes the missiles too, just in case) -> Everyone here is single shots with a range of 3x strength (ok, the missiles technically have no range at all). Oh, oh, wait. There was a footnote, the throwing only applies to grenades, you need the launchers for the missiles. Kind of a shame, it could have been fun throwing the missiles. Sure, I'll let it happen, 0.5x strength meters of base range. Chuck away. Frag missiles are 4k2, pen 5, blast 6, flak armor has no difference between a direct hit and a near miss with these. Krak missiles are 5k4, pen 12, blast 1, very rare and used for anti-armor. Grenades are all types, smoke, frag, krak, stun, flash, plasma, and grav. Krak and plasma have no blast radius but 10 penetration. Flash, stun, and grav do no damage. Smoke is smoke, 3d10 meters and a couple minutes. Ok, photon flash has no actual rules but does blinding people or overloading visual systems. Annoying. Stuns are DC 15 constitution saves (10 with eye & ear protection) or be stunned for 1d5 rounds, also one measly meter of radius. Grav is a DC 15 dexterity save or fall to the center of the 5m blast & take falling damage (I think, 2 wounds? by the RAW rules, with acrobatics options to reduce it).

And that's all of our "reach out and (bad) touch someone" options from this book. Basic weapon proficency gets you ordinary & las weapons which should cover 95% of everyone's needs. Ranged 2 proficency is anti-armor and flamers. Do flamers count as anti-armor? I'm pretty sure setting a tank on fire is fairly 'anti'. Fine, ranged 2 is anti-armor plus !!FUN!!. Ranged 1 is sort of everything else. It has a nice spread of different options though and includes the only non-lethal options.

The photon flash grenade being zero blast and no rules annoys be a bit though.

[Telok]

And now, introducing, the one, the only, Stabby McStabinator!

Yup. Time for the melee weapons. Fewer in number but more diverse than the guns. Like last time I'll note the weapon proficency in parentheses. Did I mention ammo last time? You get generally speaking 2 clips with most weapons on purchase, 4 clips for pistols. Ammo rarity DC is -5 from the weapon rarity, you can buy your special ammo separate but the bonuses for good/best ammo don't stack with the bonuses for good/best weapons. Of course looted weapons don't come with an ammo suppply.

Ordinary (basic & melee 1) -> generic hand weapons at 3k2. Clubs are a measly 1k2 but they're also unbquitous so you can get that nice best quality silver baseball bat for a reasonable DC 10 wealth test. Daiklaives run 4k2 & 4 penetration being noted that they're magically enhanced and unbalanced for 'mortals'. The power sword is the daiklaive stats but with a power field, also more expensive.

Parrying (melee 2) -> Knife is knife, 1k2, very common, throwable with a base range of 5m. Katar is 0k2 penetration 3 at commmon rarity. Main Gauche is knife + 1k0 to parry at uncommon rarity. Basic utility weapons. Notable is that one point of the artifact background can get you an artifact knife, a minimal investment for a basic plot-immunity protected magic weapon (with the artifact bonuses, next chapter I think).

Cavalry & Flail (melee 1) -> All 2k2, 2k3, or 3k2, with ratities from uncommon to very rare. The lance itself does +0k1 damage when 'used on horseback', let's just call that when appropriately mounted and moving, penetration 4, -1k0 to parry, and reach. Spears can be thrown (10m base range), have penetration 3, lack the parry penalty and the mounted bonus. Short spears are one-handed unthrowable non-reach spears. Flails all get the flexible property that makes them impossible to parry, a nice thing in a world of power weapons. That's it for the base flail. The dire flail is just a really big & heavy flail, not the D&D abomination but more like the WH spinny gobbo abomination (gotta pick your abominations carefully), it gets penetration 3, takes 2 hands, and can't be used to parry at all. The electro flail is the base flail trading -1k0 of damage for adding the shocking property, good for riot police.

Fencing (melee 2) -> These are all one handed awords that get +1k0 to parry. Fencing sword & officers cutlass are 2k2 common & rare, that cost upgrade jsut gets you the shocking property. The phase sword does 3k2, penetration 7, and has the power field. Hidden in the descriptions is that it's definitely at least partially magical and doesn't damage armor as it cuts up the people inside. Whether that last bit is fluff or mechanics is up to you.

Two handers & syrneth (melee 3) -> Great weapons are your generic upgrade to generic hand weapons, 3k3 penetration 4, -1k0 to parry. The grand dailkaive is explicitly magical in construction, a good 30+ cm wide, and can't be used to parry. For that you get a 4k3 penetration 2 weapon that cost more than a great weapon. The goremaul is a hammer version of the grand daiklaive, it does impact damage instead of rending damage. The syreth scythe and grimscythe are sickle shaped weapons that use a thin forcefield from the tip to the handle as the cutting edge. The physical 'blade' is just a support structure. Both are power weapons, 4k2 & 6k2, both penetration 8, with the grimscythe being a mythic rare 2-hander at -1k0 to parry. the gyrespike is another abomination weapon that uses magic to function at all, you can look at the picture to see what I mean. 5k1, penetration 6, understandable very rare & counts as a flexible weapon.

Chain weapons (melee 3) -> Our weaponized chainsaws from WH40K. Sword and axe are the same penetration 4, rare, tearing weapons. Sword is 3k2 to the axe 2k3. Hidden in the descriptions is that there are double bitted axes with independent heads. Breaking one chain on those doesn't stop the other head, but there aren't actual rules for that so YMMV. Axe rules either way, that extra kept damage die is better than the extra rolled die, swords have style though.

Shield (melee 1) -> Only one entry here, callled 'Shield' of course. 0k1 common 'weapon'. Armored & defensive though, so +2 armor to that arm and +2k0 to parrying but -1k0 to attack. Non-proficent gives you the -1k0 to all your attacks.

Unarmed (basic & melee 2) -> These specifically add to your unarmed damage. So brass knuckles add +0k1 (bst quality can be disguised as gloves though), cestus adds +1k1 & penetration 2, while the power fist adds +2k2 penetration 4 and of course the power field.

Armor. We went all in on the hurty stuff, so now we get the anti-hurt.

We get the expected 'how to read the table' bit. Anything that protects your 'body' hit location includes your 'gizzards'. Maximum dexterity is the cap on your effective dexterity for dodging, speed calculations, and anything involving quick movement as adjucated by the DM. When mixing armor on the same location you just use the better AP (armor points) value and the worse max dex value. So, not much point in it. Modern primitive armor is magiced up enough to deflect bullets and resist stuff, so we don't have to care that 'leather armor' should be basically transparent to a shotgun at point blank range, we added magic just o you can count that measly -2 damage off your "where did my ribs go?".

Light armor goes from leather at AP 2 to everything but the head, to full peices of advanced tech mesh for 4 AP all over if you get the full suit.

Medium armor is chain mail or flak. All AP 5 except the chain hood at AP 4. Helmets don't have a max dex, but everything else is at max dex 5, almost. You have a choice of the flak vest with max dex 5 that covers the body (there's a flak gauntlets too for the arms) or the flak jacket that covers everything but the legs and has max dex 4. Effectively flak has a choice of pieces for max dex 5 but not the legs, or the jacket and helmet for all over protection and max dex 4. Flank also doubles it's AP versus blast wepons unless they score a direct hit on the wearer. Flak is popular.

Heavy armor is banded or carapace. Banded is a suit with AP 6, carapace is pieces for AP 7. Both have max dex 3. Also from the armor proficency feat (and not mentioned in this section at all) is htat heavy and heavier armors take half their AP as a penalty to static defense. This really really really should have been part of the table. Your heavy armor static defense penalty is -3.

Extreme armor is a suit of plate or a siut of storm carapace. Both are AP 8, static defense penalty -4. Plate has a max dex of 2 and you have to buy the helmet separately. Storm carapace has a max dex of 3 and functions as a void suit. Splurge on the slightly more expensive storm carapace.

Power armor. Finally the really good stuff. Light and regular versions. Light has AP 10, max dex 3. Regular has AP 12, max dex 2. Both give a bonus of +1 strength, +1 resilience, and an additional penalty of -2 static defense. your defense penalties are therefore -7 and -9. It does not say that power armor counts as a void suit, so, a possible down side.

Armor quality has the same -5, +5, +10 buying DC modifiers. Poor adds -1 max dex. Good gets... Seriously? +1 AP against the first attack in a round. Too bloody fiddly and annoying. +1 AP, flat, all attacks, done. Sheesh. Best quality is +1 AP on all attacks and +1 max dex.

Right. Next time I'll finish off the equipment section with misc. stuff and bionics. Then it's on to the artifacts.

[Telok]

Ow. I'm copying these posts back into my main text file and the spell checker just starts griping at me. I'd say it serves me right for turning off the spellchecker on my phone but that thing just offends me on some fundamental level.

So, gear.


Note there is no listing for ammunition, basic food and water, and so forth. The characters are assumed to be able to take care of such things for themselves. The purchase of a gun is assumed to be accompanied by the purchase of a reliable source of ammunition.A character can take as much ammo as they want with them (within reason - a person can only carry so much!), replenishing it whenever they get back to their base of operations. If they don't have a base of operations, well, then they just get it during any significant downtime. Let's be honest - the necessities are only removed when it's important for the plot ANYWAY, so it's one less thing to be kept track of.

You have you auspex/tri-corder (uncommon) for tech-use detection stuff. Charms (common), which are assorted keepsakes, relics, luck tokens, etc., that have as much effect as your lucky rabbit foot* so my players ignore them unless they came with their starting gear. Combi-tool (uncommon) for tech-use doing stuff. Data=slate that we frankly just run a tablets/cellphones. Magical implements (uncommon) for style points and there's a feat that uses them. Med-kits (uncommon) for that +5 on medic checks. Micro-beads (common) for that 1km walkie-talkie effect, but smaller and easier to lose. Multi-key (rare) for when you're crap at tech-use or don;t have a multi-tool and don't want to use a meltagun on the door. Void suit (uncommon) for your space walks. And in a perfect display of schizophrenic setting tech level the common writing kit with paper, ink wells, and quills**.

I skipped stuff, but not much. It's a reasonable sample of general stuff that people buy and use. Clothing & flashlights are very common, cell phones are common, laptops are uncommon, illegal automatic lockpicks are rare. There, you can decide how much things cost now.

Services get short shrift. There are two paragraphs that cover not sweating the petty stuff because it's all covered under wealth, backing, etc., and it ends with "However, finding transport, getting long-term medical care, and so forth can take some time." and no indication of anything else. Since it's likely that at some point someone will want a limb regenerated or an atonement spell cast I would have been pleased to know what spellcasting NPCs charge. Also hiring mercenaries for the short term or how much having someone assassinated costs. Although since we're talking about PCs here I suppose it would be better to ask about finding and buying the services of a spy.

Then we end off the chapter with the very important cybernetics section. Because there are crit results that melt faces and blow off limbs.

We get arms, legs, hearts (not available for promethians), lungs (available but useless to promethians & vampires), senses, and the mind impulse unit (data-jack, direct neural interface, pick a name for the people-machine connection from your favorite fiction). Your bionics are assumed to use the same strength & dexterity scores as you do, generally. They add +2 armor to the hit location (not lungs though) and note that limbs that get inappropriate results like bleeding are rendered useless untill repaired instead. Any actual bonuses or penalties for having a limb only apply to that limb and the don't stack, you just get the bonus using either cyber-limb. Poor and good quality have noted modifiers, best quality has no additional effect except to add bling or look almost perfectly natural.

Attachment requires a reasonable medical facility in a reasonably technologically advanced place. The procedure will run 2d10 days minus 1 per dot of constitution, minimum of 1 day. License is given to the DM to screw with things if the PCs go in for a back alley chop shop run by a failed medical student. The cost of the service is factored into the cost of the limb. Given that a poor quality cyber-arm is only common rarity (wealth DC 10) that's practically low end out-patient surgery.

Shape-shifting magic is specifically called out in it's own section. The cybernetics shift with the user and retain full functionality. Do not screw with the stray cyber-dog, it could be a cyber-werewolf with a sick sense of humor and/or a bad hangover.

Bionic Arm. Arm is arm, replaces normal one with no functional change but the +2 armor and lack of bleeding to death. Poor quality can halve your dexterity for that arm and apply a -2k0 to weaponry and ballistics rolls. Apparently brawling is exempt from that. Good quality is +1k0 to fine manipulation and straight-up strength checks.

Bionic heart. No mention of quality changes on this one but from the text maybe there were supposed to be. You get your +2 armor and may or may not need to have a good quality one for the fleet of foot feat. Yes, you can buy a movement booster feat (not a bad one either) for a DC 20 wealth test.

Bionic leg. As arms, leg is leg. Poor quality gets you 1/2 speed movement and a dexterity DC 10 check in order to not fall down when you (actually at the end of) run. Good quality gets you +2k0 to jumping and fleet of foot again.

Bionic lungs. No armor boost here, just +2k0 against airborne toxins and gas weapons. Poor quality are loud (-2k0 stealth) and strenuous physical activity (vague) requires another raise to succeed (effect: +5 DC). Good quality are a "full life support system" and may be completely unnoticeable. I guess that lets you hold your breath forever? I don't know, needs more editing &or proofreading.

Cyber-senses. No armor boost here either, just functional replacements. Poor quality gives -2k0 to perception using that sense. Good quality gives you the heightened senses feat and +2k0 to resist attacks on the sense (so that's a +2k0 to resist flash-bangs for sight & hearing). In addition you can include "telescopic sighs" (editor!), see-in-the-dark, cameras, an internal micro-bead, etc., each one bought as a separate wealth test DC 20 "sense".

Mind impulse units. No, no armor for this either. Apparently the basic unit is a USB port in your wrist or spine. Normal effect is a +1k0 to tech-use, pilot, and drive, with any linkage capable machines or vehicles. Poor quality needs at DC 15 intelligence check to work on jacking in. Good quality adds logic, inquiry, and wireless capability. Since "logic" and "inquiry" are lumped in with the other skills I think there was a time in development when the skill list was bigger. I think that wireless capability is probably just fine as a bennie.

There's an intermission fluff piece involving a bad joke and randomly murdering a bartender. Then we'll be on to the artifacts.

*Charms have no tangible benefits. However, when the unfolding plot calls for something bad to happen to a random character, at the SM's discretion a character with a charm will be exempt. If all the characters carry charms (as most wise adventurers do) then it is up to the SM to choose which charms are the most potent.
**Buy a !@#$ pencil!

[Telok]

Artifacts.
Magic gear, bought with backgrounds or looted from enemies. In theory I suppose that you could craft it yourself, but that’s a bother and then you probably wouldn’t be out having adventures, would you?

It goes on about how there are different ways to handle artifacts in the game. A gear, where your magic sword is just a better sword. As ‘legacies’, where the artifacts are important to the characters on a more emotional level and don’t just get waved around like normal equipment. As objectives or MacGuffins, “find five plot coupons to redeem for one world saving�. It also mentions not overusing that one too much, it can get old when it’s on repeat. As “companions�, which is apparently like the ‘legacies’ one but different? Apparently they’re supposed to affect how the character acts in some way? Supposedly most games do a bit of mix and match, and you should supposedly think about it.

Script immunity. Someone noticed that players get upset when they lose their stuff. Kill their family, assassinate their allies, blow up the house, sink the barge, everything is OK until you steal that freaking +1 dagger, +3 vs. toe fungus. So A) don’t immediately swipe their magic stuff right off the bat at the beginning of the game, and B) make it reversable. Repairable, recoverable, revenge-able, whatever. Work an undo button into the story/game/quest. You should probably make it pretty quick and immediate too, don’t make them wait around for it.

Game impact. You can screw how useful an artifact is. Don’t. Player/DM communication is important. Players tell DMs what your character has and what you want to be doing. DMs warn the player if your entire game is set on a space station with no animals and they’re talking about a magic stone that repels animals. Also a possibility is that the player could be knowingly taking an artifact that they won’t use. If it’s part of the character or a story hook for some reason. Treasure these players and reward them by making the artifact important even if it’s never used. If an artifact is too useful then either the artifact is too powerful (probably not actually the problem, the ones in the book are almost all pretty narrow in utility), or the character isn’t facing a variety of challenges. Quote “A soul-eating sword can’t make a space pirate princess fall in love with you or repair a hull breach before the air runs out.�

Common traits of artifacts. They’re magical (duh?), don’t wear our or break on accident, are generally hard to break, and shouldn’t be easy to buy or sell. Even the low end artifacts should only be able to be bought or sold by wealth 4 & 5 characters and then with much difficulty. Given that 4k4 & 5k5 run at almost 50% success on DCs 25 & 30 that means that artifact 1 (very common) should probably be DC 35s, which is… one step past mythic rare, if I recall correctly.

We have the rating able. For a background of artifact 1 you can have a very common artifact or the artifact version of a very common weapon or armor. Artifact 5 gets you a very rare. Armor & weapons are made out of one of 5 magic metals, ammo for weapons that use solid ammo (no, no artifact flamer or lascannon ammo, ask your DM about artifact webber ammo) is at one rarity less than the weapon itself (minimum artifact 1 of course) and you get 1 clip, 2 clips for pistols. The ammo follows our usual rule for ammo, you have a supply and/or source, but the clip limit is what you’re talking on a mission. All artifact weapons and armor (and ammo) are considered best quality but don’t get the quality bonuses, they get the artifact bonuses instead. Artifact bionics are made out of the magic metals too. Like armor and weapons you get the base thing, the +2 (or not) armor for the limb/gizzards, and the artifact qualities overwrite the ‘best’ quality. In addition the death/dismemberment/limb explodes into gore type criticals just sever the artifact instead of blowing it up. Then you have to go through the whole reattachment process again (regeneration doesn’t help). There aren’t any rules for artifact bionics beyond the arm, leg, and heart replacements.

Magic metals.
Oricalcmcmcucmcucum: Gold colored. Shiny. Melee, +1k0 attack & parry, +3 damage, 1/scene reroll attack. Ranged, 1/scene reroll attack. Ammo, +1k0 attack, +10m range, never jams or overheats. Armor, +2 AP. Arm, as best quality but you get +1k1 instead of +1k0. Leg, +2m speed, +2k1 athletics. Heart, +2 armor & +2 hp. Sort of all around bonuses to stuff.

Mithril: Silver colored. Shiny. Melee, +2 static defense, +2 damage. Ranged, no penalties for using heavy weapons without bracing, no penalties for using basic weapons in one hand, no bonuses for pistols. Ammo, double range. Armor, +2 max dex. Arm, +1k1 to general dexterity checks and parrying with that arm, also make one ready action as a free action each round (not quite sure how that works out). Legs, +2m speed, +1k0 athletics checks, +2k0 acrobatics checks. Heart, +1 armor (additional to the base +2 or instead of the usual +2?), immune to toxic weapons, get the Fleet of Foot feat. More sort of general boosts, more dexterity/movement oriented. Some questions about how things ought to work. That arm could be really strong. The heart could be kind of naff.

Darksteel: Black to dark gray. Glowing orangey magic motes orbiting it. Completely and totally indestructible. Melee & ammo, +4 penetration. Ranged, does double damage to cover. Armor, halve the penetration of weapons hitting you (nice). Arm, +2k0 strength checks with the arm and ignore all criticals unless they would kill the user or destroy the arm, those just sever the arm (apparently without killing the owner?). Legs, +2k0 to checks to say on your feet and the same critical ignoring as the arms. Heart, +3 armor (again, instead of or in addition to the usual?) and ignore all gizzard criticals. Weapons try to ignore armor, armor tries to ignore weapons, ranged weapons trash the scenery, bionics are hard to hurt. There are reasons that promethians can’t get bionic hearts, this is one of them. Absolute immunity to 1/10 of all crits for… artifact 4 I believe.

Wraithbone: Solid, crystalized, magic from the warp. Ceramic/porcelain. Repairs itself and lots of curves instead of angles. Melee, deliver melee range spells with the weapon, if it has a casting time of a ½ action or more you can… I interpret it as adding the spell as a rider onto the regular weapon attack. Plus, I don’t think there are any free action or reaction melee attack spells. Well, you can always home-brew. Ranged, 1/day generate a clip of ammo (or 3 shots for stuff with 1 shot). Weak-sauce. Ammo, counts as a magical attack, bypasses armor, damage is reduced by Aura instead. Armor, +4 aura. Arm, may parry touch and ranged touch spells. They’re just absorbed into the arm with no effect. Legs, 1/scene walk on air for a round at full speed in any/all directions. Heart, when rolling for warp crap you roll twice and choose. Combo with the Atlantean exalt for making spellcasting much, much, safer.

Necrodermis: Dull gray. Cold. Living metal. In my game, harvested from modrons and extensively purified to prevent “I’ll be back�. Melee & ranged weapons, -2k0 to dodge & parry, +1k0 damage. Ammo, toxic (weak). Armor, opponents -2k0 to hit. Arm, +1k0 to strength checks with the arm and heals all critical damage at the start of the round. Legs, stands you up from prone as a free action without opportunity attacks, plus the critical damage regeneration thing. Heart, if you would burn a hero point to survive something rill a d10, on a 1-5 lose a point of wisdom instead as the heart revives you. The heart should probably also heal gizzard criticals like the arms and legs do.

Looking through all this I’m becoming torn as to how to handle cyber-legs. Arms definitely come as singles, but that doesn’t make as much sense for legs. It’s like one good quality leg would be just as good as two, and maybe the artifact legs plus a good quality leg could stack bonuses. You can’t actually get two artifact limbs through the backgrounds. Although I suppose that it could be done in play. Actually in my game it was done in play, once on purpose and once they let a loot opportunity slide. Weirdly those were both necrodermis legs. And one wasn’t properly purified (the PC checked out and became an NPC before it became an issue, although now that he’s been in a vampire no-blood coma there’s nothing stopping it from absorbing other stuff and turning that into necrodermis, and eventually into a modron). Neh, I guess it doesn’t matter too much. I’d let a player run it either way, two legs at once or two different legs. You just couldn’t swap back and forth.

So that’s arms (all), armor, and body bits. Oh, I missed something. All of these except ammo comes with a “hearthstone slot�. The hearthstones are little add-on artifacts that you stick onto other stuff. Ok, some aren’t so little but they’re normally less impressive than other stuff. Next time we’ll cover the miscellaneous artifact type stuff.

Note to self: take microsoft products out behind the barn and put them out of their misery.

[The Glyphstone]

What the heck happened to your punctuation formatting? I starting reading everything in my brain's deranged version of a Scottich accent after the first few paragraphs.

[Telok]

What the heck happened to your punctuation formatting? I starting reading everything in my brain's deranged version of a Scottich accent after the first few paragraphs.

It turns out that some microsoft applications cannot correctly convert/save quotation marks into plain text.

I used to be able to do a passable brogue, but it's been many a year.

And now I can't unsee/unhear it. I've had an old b&w BBC series of shakespear's history & kings plays on recently, with an astonishingly young pre-fame sean connery. And I can't unhear it.

Weel at least it has decent voice acting now.

[Telok]

Wonderous artifact diddly-boppers.
I'm just not going through all of them. I mean, it's shorter than going through say, D&D magic item lists. But it would still be pretty long and, I think, dull to slog through all of them. I'll try doing a sample of some sort of grouping. Edit: Ok, it's fewer than I remembered, I'll do them all. Keep in mind that they're explicitly a sampling of stuff and not an exclusive or exhaustive list.

Situational near trash artifact 1s: We got the detect magic spyglass, a magic ultrasonic animal repeller, indestructible box only the owner can open, a "no dirt on me" thing, a trash amulet that does nothing but hold a hearthstone, a slightly better butane lighter, and a tracking dart (1 to 2 km range if they didn't notice that you stuck a 3cm nail with feathers into them).

Actually useful artifact 2s: bracers that hold 2 hearthstones and add +2 to all your armor locations, a +2m speed & 20kph always dry and comfortable boots, the classic bag of holding that does 2 cubic meters of anything at zero weight, an infinite battery life 'all the tools from the equipment table' (combi-tool, data slate, multikey, etc., etc., plus extras), the +5 hat of disguise (doesn't do clothing), near perfect psychic paper, and a near useless +1k0 perception, +3k0 to detect magic tiara.

Others: The rod of might is a 2 to 4 artifact with that many functions, left to the player and DM to work out. Apparently bunches of variants exist, including functioning as different types of best quality weapons. The jump pack is a 1/scene, as a half action, take the run action (x6 speed plus any feat benefits you have) and perfect flight while you're doing that. I'd be happy to allow a 3/scene and 5/scene as artifact 4s and 5s.

Seriously, I'm kind of pissed at the artifact 1s. You could drop a couple of artifact 2s down to 1 as well. We're talking about a necrodermis autopistol (artifact 2) and 2 clips of wraithbone ammo (artifact 1) that gives us a total of -2k0 to dodge, +1k0 damage, and bypasses armor (resisted by much lower and rarer aura) as 3 points of artifact background. You expect me to believe that's the same value as a fancy lighter, a sonic animal repellant, and a 'no dirt on me' charm? In a game with this much violence? The bag of holding, the 'all tools' and psychic paper are OK. I'll even accept the +2 bracers, boots, rod, and jump pack. The rest feels terribly overpriced.

Hearthstones, generally the size of a chicken egg, they need to be stuck onto a magic item in order to work. Be prepared for the PCs to walk past them because they'll forget about detecting magic (when it's an easy skill check) and it might not be absolutely, blatantly, screamingly, strobe-light & sound track obvious that they're a magic item. I may be biased. My players passed by the solution to a major problem, directly killed off an entire planet (ok, Athas wasn't that nice but it's still an entire planet), and indirectly killed several more planets due to this. Plus they gave the illithids a D&D 3e style shadow-pocalypse weapon. All because they never thought to check a corpse's pockets or detect magic. I'll grant that DtD40k7e de-emphasizes looting with the wealth mechanic, but you still want to check once in a while. Especially when enemies show up with weird, new weapons and could possibly have the keys to the locked doors on them.

1s: Get the common sense feat, +2k0 medicine rolls, a one language perfect translator (but not syrenth), and an unerring 'retrace your footsteps' thing.
2s: A pair of infinite range unjammable perfectly secure walkie talkies, +5 athletics and acrobatics checks (primarialy balancing & climbing, no mention of dodging), resist fire (-5 damage & comfortable with heat), 20m range perception check DC 10 for emotion & exaltation detection.
3s: May stunt parry (remember, stunts require description but add bonus dice) ranged attacks instead of dodging, D&D freedom of movement (also includes an editing mistake from an earlier draft), unlimited water breathing & water environment immunity (depth pressure, the bends, water temperature, etc.), and one that grants near-perfect outdoor survival skills.
4s: Daylight at any level & radius up to desert at midday & 1km radius in an instant, nightly dream augury on a DC 15 scrutiny check with no wrong information clause, aging immortality (you're still stabbing mortal), and reduce hp damage by 1 (possibly to 0) but gain a fatigue level every time it works.

That's rather more like it. Although exalts are all functionally immortal anyways so the immortality stone is just a plot MacGuffin. The 1s are essentially feats, in one case literally, while the 3s are similar to mid-high D&D spells or class features. Promethians may find the Gem of Adamant Skin particularly useful since they're immune to fatigue.

That's the end of the artifact section. Rather a mixed bag of useless to really useful. It caps off with another inter-chapter fluff piece that goes over the DtD40k7e version of the opening Ghostbusters encounter. Unfortunately I think those poor normies are in for a nasty time.

[Telok]

Playing the game: How I learned to shut up and roll the dice.
Checks, tests, rolls, etc. You roll X dice and keep Y dice. They explode (reroll and add) on 10s. If you're rolling more than 10 dice, for every 2 past 10 you keep another. If you're keeping more than 10 dice every extra die is a +5. Thus 11k5 -> 10k5, 12k5 -> 10k6, 11k11 -> 10k10+10.

Skillz: Git good noob.
Roll skill + attribute, keep attribute. If you have no skill then you can't even try advanced skills, for basic skills you default to a straight attribute roll with a -1k0 penalty.

Characteristics: Rolls you don't add skills/levels to. If you're reduced to rolling zero dice you get to still roll 1d10, but the 10 counts as zero and can't explode.

Opposed rolls: Opposed is opposed. On a tie highest attribute wins. I guess if its still tied then highest skill wins. If its still tied just flip a coin or something. If both succeed then the highest number wins. If both fail then its a stalemate and/or roll again.

Target numbers/DCs: 5 -> 40 and 15 is average. It's the same as the D&D 5e DC chart except this time you aren't a chump to a d20. I've seen 50s to 80s several times, two 100+ rolls, and a single 200+ roll over the course of a year. Guesstimate about 40 sessions averaging 5-ish hours per session. Mind, the 200+ was a cyber-monk paragon stunt jumping at something like 10k8r1x9 (roll 10, keep 8, reroll 1s, explodes on 9 & 10) out of maybe 10 or so of those rolls during a fight. Still running around 1/100,000 odds or something for that result, still less than four 20s in a row on d20s.

Stunting: How not to be full of suck and fail. Exposition, explanation, and excuses aside... Talk up what you're doing and get bonus dice to roll. Get +1k0 for a good description, running across the heads of a crowd or barehanded parrying a daiklave. Get +2k0 for including the scenery and you're allowed some minor editorial power. You can add stuff like a banner on a wall to grab & swing on, pull a reasonably basic and small hidden weapon, or declare that a mook dropped his fully loaded weapon somewhere convenient for you to grab and use. Get +3k0 for trying to be truly audacious and awesome. You get the same editorial grant as a 2 die stunt. You need to do more than stick some adjectives and adverbs into your monotone "I hit him again. <roll>". Risk is to be rewarded.

Hero points: They refresh at the start of each game session. Yes, very meta. Use them to reroll a failed check (once), reduce a DC by 5 (before rolling, may use multiples), add +5 to a successful check (after rolling, may use multiples), roll a 10 on your initiative (declare instead of rolling), or instantly recover from being stunned (at ANY time). You can permanently burn (lose) a hero point, even one that's already been spent, to do any of the above (you won't) or to survive a fatality (depends on your risk taking and bad decision making). The player can mostly dictate the survival although they're still out of the fight. Mild dismemberment and horrible scarring are encouraged. You gain them at the DMs discretion. Usually major plot milestones and amazing deeds.

Combat: Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
The galaxy is a dangerous place and you're supposed to be heroic (or villainous), not a complete coward. This is the fighty bits rules.

Narrative time versus structured time: TLDR -> combat is structured time. Rounds are about 5 seconds long, although I run them as a vague 5 to 10 seconds and two of my players are absolutely convinced they are 6 seconds. Hmm... Mr. Bolt did 100m in a hair under 10 seconds. 50 per 5 -> 50/6 = 8.3 -> 4 strength & 4 dexterity gives a speed of 8 which gives us a run distance of 48m per round. Fleet of Foot lets you double that for a round without penalty (fatigue doesn't prevent running so he can keep it up for his constitution + 2 in rounds before passing out) to 96m per round. Either a good cyber-leg makes you (ok, someone in really great physical condition) nearly twice as fast as our current world record sprinter or I like 10 second rounds better.

Base combat rules: 1) Everyone goes once per round. 2) You get 1 reaction, as many free actions as the DM & other players allow, 1 full action OR 2 half actions. 3) Important: You can't take the same half action twice in a round. 4) Not mentioned here is that you get one free opportunity attack each round and exalts can spend resource points to get additional reactions during the round up to their power stat. I also let people spend a reaction to take an additional opportunity attack, but now I'm not sure if that's right or a house rule. We'll see.

Combat overview: Surprise, initiative, take turns, round ends, rinse and repeat until it's all over. Then a half page on adjudicating surprise, which pretty much comes down to DM decides with maybe some perception/scrutiny checks. Surprised folks don't get to act in the first round and give combat advantage (+5 to hit them). Paragon exalts cannot be surprised and there's nothing abut that in this section. Actually there isn't anything addressing it in the book at all. I just have them automatically delay in initiative until there's something for them to act on/react to. That prevents stupid stuff like "Oh, we went into combat time. Well I'll fireball that clump of trees and throw a grenade behind that car because those are the only places for an ambush to hide around here."

Actions: We get a full page list of actions with short descriptions. Print off a couple copies and annotate them to suit your needs. There's no key for the "type" column but it's pretty simple, 'Fr' = free, 'H' = half, 'F' = full, 'H/F' means there are options for both, 'V' = variable. Talks about types and subtypes of actions (for example: immobilized prevents movement subtyped actions). All your actions generally resolve on your turn during the round, exceptions being reaction, opportunity attacks, and extended actions that take multiple rounds to finish.

Spiffy or unusual actions, not all of them:
* Aid another - maximum of 2 assists, must be adjacent, have to have the skill involved in order to assist. May not be used with supernatural abilities, free actions, spells, or spell casting. Decent guidance there.
* Bull rush - straight up opposed strength checks to move the target 2m + 2m per raise. Nice and simple.
* Charge - minimum 4m distance, straight line. No movement type restrictions, no vision requirements, and no penalties. You can totally charge the invisible wizard through tall grass without a -2 AC or a -4 attack penalty.
* Delay - Needs an example. Can you do a half action and delay to get your other half action later in the round or are you spending a half action to delay taking your other half action? I've gone with the latter interpretation.
* Fight defensively - Needs errata. The table says its a full action, text should trump table but the text says its a half action. That would let you take a standard attack, then a defensive attack at -1k0 to hit, and gain +1k0 to dodge and parry until your next turn in addition to bypassing the multiattack action restrictions and the swift attack & double tap feats.
* Full auto burst - I've been doing the interaction with two weapon fighting wrong. You'll suck down penalties but you can make two full auto attacks while walking with two autopistols.
* Full defense - Actually quite useful, especially with the parry-riposte feat. The +10 static defense and an extra reaction to parry/dodge means it actually works as a defense.
* Grappling - Everyone's favorite terrible combat subsystem to bash. Pretty simple here. Initially 1) take a half action to land a brawling attack. 2) win an opposed strength test. 3) take one of the listed sub-actions as another half action. When continuing a grapple or being grappled 1a) a full round action to win an opposed strength test, OR 1b) a half action to try strength or dexterity to escape. Either way if you lose it ends your turn 2) if you won you 're a) in control of the grapple and take one of the grapple sub-actions, or b) you're free and can do whatever you want with your remaining half action. It's all on one page in a nice clear font. Print out a copy for reference, mostly for the list of sub-actions (stand one or both of you, prone one or both of you, bull rush them, attack for normal unarmed damage or 1-handed weapon damage (no reactions allowed by the victim), ready equipment of yours or grab equipment of theirs, use readied equipment equipment).
* Healing surge - Spend resource points up to your level (bypassing the per round power stat limit?) and heal that many hit points. Also +5 static defense.
* Multi-attack - You need to be doing two weapon fighting or have one of the feats (swift attack, lightning attack, doublt tap, etc.) to do this. You need to spend a resource point for each attack roll after the first.
* Opportunity attack - I was doing it wrong. One free standard attack per turn, not per round. Anyone's turn. So when 20 kobolds try to conga line past the lady with the chain sword that's 20 opportunity attacks and probably a nice little corpse pile. Like.
* Overwatch - Designate a kill zone and ready to full auto burst a bunch of ammo into it. Define your own trigger for the readying.
* Shift - As per the table this doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. Actually that's handled by the subtype keywords, it lacks the provoking keyword, but I think it's probably worth mentioning in the text.
* Suppressing fire - Spray a kill zone with full auto burst. Anyone in the zone has to make a pinning test (pretty much a modified fear test, covered under the conditions which are next) and random people in the zone, up to your ammo expenditure, get hit by a single shot (maximum one per person). DC 20 to pull off and every raise is another random hit, you explicitly cannot choose to fail the test. This does bypass dodging and static defense. Do not give in to the players whining the first time the PCs get sprayed. They'll appreciate it when you pull out the 40 static defense super 10k6r1 dodge monkey with triple attack and a syrneth scythe. They'll also learn to appreciate cover.
* Tactical advance - A full round double move from cover to cover. You don't provoke opportunity attacks and always count as being behind your initial cover until you're behind your final cover.
* Other - Other is other. Just in case you need it. DM tries to figure something out.

Next up, conditions. Like being on fire. I like setting PCs on fire.

[Telok]

Attacking: Telling someone in DtD40k7e how you feel about them in five easy steps.
It's a page and a half of stepping you through how to hurt someone. With some examples and exposition. I approve of the examples, I just wish that some players would read them once in a while.
1. Tally up your modifiers and figure out what you'll be rolling.
2. Roll your attack. Base: level (if proficient) + skill rolled and skill kept.
2a. Victim may be able to stempt to dodge, parry, or take some other defensive reaction.
3. Hit location. 1 & 2 are legs, 3 - 6 is the body, 7 gizzards, 8 & 9 are arms, 10 head. I occasionally modify by critter body plan, once it was: 1 - 6 big long tentacles, 7 - 9 body, 10 plasma beam eyeball.
4. Roll damage. Remember any modifiers, and melee attacks add strength as rolled dice to the base weapon damage.
5. Apply damage to the victim. Armor on the hit body part, less the penetration of the attack, is subtracted from the damage. Then divide damage by resilience and drop fractions. That's you hit point loss/wounds taken. If you run out of hit points you go to the critical tables at a 1:1 ratio of wounds to critical level.

We had a guy who, for months apparently, without telling anyone was ADDING the penetration vlaue to the damage and then subtracting armor. Which would work as long as the penetration of the attack is less than your armor.

Any how, the biggest bugaboo of the system is resilience. The calculation to determine it and the damage divided by resilience. The outcomes are good, bigger things are easier to hit and harder to damage, but the math adds a good one or two seconds even once you're used to it. Sure (30 - (12 - 8))/7 & drop fractions is something 10 year olds do. But 8 PM Saturday night after a glass of wine and two slices of bad pizza, and you've been at this since 3 PM... Well, sometimes it does stuff to the mathamatic capabilities of even the best of us.

Of course just scribbling down a chart on the character sheet next to your hit point box solves 95% of the issues in play. Barring that occasional "count as a size smaller" stuff that pops up here and there. I'm honestly thinking that you could just run all those as "-1 resilience for this attack" or "+10% damage" and it would be about the same most of the time. One other thing I've considered is to make hit points the result of the current hit point calculation times the resilence calculation. You would have to figure out a new way to determine the critical hit effects and large creatures/objects would effectively take a hit because you aren't dropping fractions any more. I'd want to spreadsheet a comparison of the results to see what it looked like. The critical damage is still kind of an issue.

Next section - combat situations. Mostly just various conditions and modifiers. It would be nice if these and some others were stuck on one big list like the actions were. I have something like that in my personal reference sheets but I've been thinking it needs to be updated now that I've run the game and have a better idea what gets loooked for often.

General to-hit modifiers
Combat advantage: +5 to get hit. Difficut terrain: melee attacks and dodging are at -1k0, or -2k0 for waist deep stuff and slick ice. In melee: shooting at them takes a -10. Extreme range: -15 to hit. Long range: -5 to hit. Point blank range but not in melee: +2k1 to hit. Short range: +1k0 to hit. Melee from higher ground: +1k0 to hit. Ganging up in melee: +1k0 to hit, +2k0 if your side outnumber the other side by 3:1.

* Cover: Acts as a layer of armor that has to be penetrated before damage can get to you. So it covers some of your hit locations instead of giving any defense bonuses. There is alittle chart from pipes and armor-glass at AP 4, through computer banks and static pods at AP 12, to plasteel walls and spaceship bulkheads at AP 32. By the rule anything penetrating the cover or barrier reduces it's AP by 1. Once the AP reaches zero the cover is destroyed. In my games I've done 'makes a very small hole' (it went though after all) and reduced the AP by it's multiple of penetrating damage. Ok, example: Someone wearing mesh (ap4) is standing off to one side in a submarine hatch (ap16, head, right arm and leg, and body #6 are exposed), with a static defense of 20. Three people shoot bolter rounds at him, rolls 15, 25, and 35. 15 is close enough to hit the hatch even if it wouldn't hit him (flip a coin, roll a scatter die, it's explosive bullets in a submarine, it goes somewhere). The 15 shot: AP 16 - penetration 6 = AP 10, damage rolls 7, 7 is less than 10 and it does nothing. The 25 shot: target dodges & gets 14, adds 7 to static defense and reaches 27, the round misses but check for a hit location anyways, if it was an exposed bit the round goes flying past, hit location left leg tags the hatch again, same math as last time but this damage roll is 18, 18 is more than 10 so 18 - 10 = 8 damage went through but still missed the target. Hatch AP is now 15 because something penetrated it. The 35 shot: no dodge so roll hit location 7 = gizzards, AP 15 - penetration 6 = AP 9, damage roll explodes all over the place and gets to 42, 42 - 9 = 33 damage gets through, target's armor takes off 4 because even though the bolt round's penetration is 6 it got applied to the cover, target gets a 29 damage hit to the gizzards, 33/15 = 2.whatever so the hatch loses 2 more AP bringing it to AP 13. I generally apply breaches to about a square meter for small arms, 4 square meters for nasty stuff like lascannons, and whatever the blast radius is for explsions.
Concealment: For when you can't see the target very well. Usually a +5 to static defense but the DM can rule it to be more.
* Falling: 1 wound per 2 meters. Acrobatics + dexterity DC 15 to reduce by 1 wound and reduce by another wound per raise. Dropping or jumping down gets 2m per dot of acrobatics that doesn't count as falling.
* Two weapon fighting: Works about like you'd expect, you can get an additional attack with the second weapon when using the multiattack action. Both attacks at a -3k0 penalty, reduced by 1 die for having ambidexterity, reduced by 2 dice for having the TWF feat. Because it's a multiattack you have to spend that extra reaction to get the extra attack. You can stack TWF with the other multiattack feats.
Weapon jams: Takes a full action to clear the jam, dumps the ammo so you have to reload, tech use + intelligence or level + ballistics vs DC 15.

Ya know, next up is injury, healing, and critical hits. I'll skip that for a but and cover the conditions. That's just my personal organization style.

Conditions, again just interesting stuff because things like blindness are pretty obvious:
* Amputated limbs: Starting with a good one. The crit tables include limb removal. This is a game where "It's just a flesh wound." is a thing. Hand: -2k1 for two handed stuff. No holding. Potential -2k0 for the primary that you can buy off for 200xp if you can't snag the ambidexterity asset. Strapping a shield to the lower arm is OK. If you lose both hands: "she should either secure a replacement or get someone to sharpen her teeth." Arm: Same as hand but no shield strapping spot. Apparently losting both makes it difficult to reach hard to clean places. Eye: -2k1 sight bases stuff and half range for ranged weapons (since that modifies accuracy). Foot: Half speed and -2k0 for movement actions & checks. Losing both: "Perhaps the ship's Engineer has some spare wheels laying around..." Leg: As foot but no dodging, a 'half the person he was' joke.
* Blood loss: This is more than just a bleeding finger or something, it's a full spurting artery type thing. Each round roll 1d10, on a 1 you die. Medic DC 20 to fix, DC 30 if you're running, fighting, doing heavy lifting, etc.
* Dazzled: -1k0 to everything except sight tests, those are -2k0.
* Diseased: DM discretion.
* On Fire: At the start of the next and subsequent rounds while exposed to !!FIRE!! (or on a flamer hit) dexterity save vs. 15 or catch on fire. You can take a full round action to put yourself out, same save. DM modifies the save by situation (I give +10 for spraying yourself with a fire extinguisher). Being on fire gives you a wound and a level of fatigue each round, it doesn't say when so I'd put it at the start of the character's turn because I'm nice. If it matters this is usually run as an energy thye hit to the body unless a specific body part is on fire or something.
* Fatigue: You can deal with fatigue level up to your constitution. Over that and you're knocked out. If you have any fatigue you're at -1k0 to rolls. Fatigue heals at one level per hour of rest or relaxation. If it knocked you out you wake up in 10-constitution hours with fatigue equal to your constitution.
* Helpless: Autohit plus roll damage twice and add.
* Pinned: Willpower save DC 20, or DC 10 if you're no longer being shot at, roll again each round at the end of your turn. People in melee are automatically freed from pinning (too busy to care about getting shot at I suppose). If pinned: 1) Only take half actions, no full actions. 2) Must stay in cover or move towards cover. 3) May retreat away from the source of pinning fire if there is cover available there or if there is no cover anywhere at all.
* Restrained: +1k0 to attack rolls and may be immpbilized if the legs are affected.
* Stunned: Grants combat advantage and take no actions. Still aware and not helpless though.
* Suffocation: Hold your breath, if you even need to breathe, for constitution minutes or 2x constitution rounds if engaging in strenuous activity. Also make a constitution save DC 10 or take a level of fatigue every minute/round. At the end of your time you go unconsious if you still can't breathe. If you're unconsious and can't breathe lose a hit point every round and die at zero hit points.

[Telok]

No spell checking! Live the danger!

Injury, critical hits, and healing.

"pilots can discover exciting new ways to land that don't involve leaving their craft in one piece"

Hit points: Characters have hit points. Minor editing issue, it says HP = constitution + willpower + misc. class bits & feats. In character creation it's (constitiution + willpower) x2, plus the other bits. I think a couple other places referenced the x2 thing as well, and I'm pretty sure it's on the provided character sheets. The x2 version is what I used anyways.

Damage: Charactes take damage. The resilience vs. damage calculation raises it's ugly head again, but there's an example provided that should help with the basics. The difference between aura and armor is explained.

Damage types: Pretty self explanatory, mostly relevant for critical effects. Energy, explosive, impact and rending.

Healing: You're lightly wounded if you've lost HP equal to or less than your willpower. You will heal 1 HP per day or constitution in HP each day if you're getting bed rest. Heavily wounded is if you've lost more HP than your willpower. You'll heal 1 HP per week, or constitution HP per week of bed rest. You'll want to keep track of when you transition to back to being lightly wounded. Critically wounded is when you're out of HP and have critical damage. You will require medical attention to heal one point of critical damage each week until you have no critical damage and go back to being heavily wounded. There's no, ah, other rules or medic check DCs for any of this. Good luck.

Critical damage: Crits happen when you're out of hit points and still taking wounds. It's a 1-to-1 HP to critical ratio (unless you have the True Grit feat) that cares about the damage type and hit location. Crit damage is "cumulative", blah, blah, blah.

So here's an interesting thing. The crit charts have 5 crits each for each hit location. Crit 5 is always death. There ends up being two ways to do this, and my group has done both. First: Additive crit levels. Five crit 1s = crit 5 and kills something. This makes tearing weapons pretty darned nasty once the target is into crits. Especially since crit 4 is death on head & gizzards, crit 3 for explosive head shots. It also has the effect of giving you very few crit 1 effects, since they can only happen on a 1 HP hit on a hit location with no crits. Second: Individual crits. In this one crits stack, but they don't add. This makes pretty much everything harder to kill if you're tracking crits on it (important NPCs, I normally have mooks just go down when they drop past 0 HP). But you'll see more of the low end crit effects, more blooding out, and more knockouts (lots of crits do fatigue damage).

How you interpret "Critical damage is cumulative" makes a difference. A size 12, resilience 10, Athasan, psychic, teleporting, fireballing, murder-elephant can easily go down with three bolt pistol shots to the head under the additive method even if they can't get more than 5 points of damage past the beast's armor. Under the second method you just blinded, deafened, and annoyed it for three rounds. No a bad job, just not blowing the head off with a gun that can barely get past the armor to make a bad bruise.

The charts are by damage type. Print off copies and hand them around. Well, at least one copy for the DM if you're being stingey.

Arms: Crit 1s get you to drop whatever was in that hand. Crit 5s sever/vaporize the arm and kill you. Crit 3s result in 1 to 5 level of fatigue, sever fingers, may need medical attention to recover use of the hand, or may just have you roll a constitution sace vs. DC 20 or lose the hand entirely.

Legs: Crit 1s half speed for a round, get knocked down, get pushed back a meter, maybe a level of fatigue. Crit 5s, like the arms, severed/vaporized and kills you. Crit 3s constitution save or lose the foot, half speed until medical attention, 1 to 5 levels a fatigue.

Body: Crit 1s include only being able to take a single half action next turn, knocked back 1d5 meters and prone with a level of fatigue per meter, and a level of fatigue of not wearing armor. Crit 3s consist combinations of of 1d5/1d10 levels of fatigue, stunned for one or two rounds, blood loss, and being knocked prone. Crit 5s are death. You get eyes popping like microwaved (chicken) eggs, spraying everything within 1d10 meters with bloody giblets, and being bisected.

Gizzards: Crit 1s are reduce armor AP by 1, take a level of fatigue, blown back 1d10 meters and take that much fatigue, and stunned for a round. Crit3s include stunned for 1 to 2d10 rounds, knocked prone and/or flying back, 1d5/1d10 levels of fatigue, blood loss, and optionally using an arm to hold your guts in or take double blood loss. Crit5s are the gorey, messy deaths that players enjoy inflicting on NPCs and the DM likes inflicting on PCs. Sliced to bits and creates slippery terrain, strawberry jam, steam explosions, ammo cooking off, fun stuff.

Head: Crit 1s feature dazzled, blinded, deafened, a level of fatigue, and possibly having a helmet negate one. Brain buckets are a good thing. Crit 3s include fun things like 1d5 rounds stunned, 2 to 1d5 levels of fatigue, losing your helmet, having your head explode, and melting your face which results in blindness for 1d10 hours plus a permanent loss of a point of fellowship. Crit 5s get you death with various special effects tacked on. Flaming chunks of skull meat, a 2m radius fear 1 check, the overripe fruit splat, and decapitation with a 2d10 meter range plus a blood spray.

Let's be honest here. This is part of why you're playing this game. If you wanted boring old "Zero HP, the goblin falls down. Next.", you'd be playing some flavor of D&D, ShadowRun, Pathfinder, StarWars, or something else sanitized and clean. No, you burned a bunch of XP on a gun kata and went questing for an artifact missile launcher because you like getting that gizzard crit 5 that cooks off ammo and spreads the carnage all over the landscape. And if you have hero points left your character can survive that. It might involve a mysterious stranger, a Syrenth cloning vat, or showing up with a chip on your shoulder about being left for dead and all your bits replaced by cyberwear... But you can keep playing that character.

Moving on to movement.

Narrative movement. Generalizations, difficult terrain is difficult, doubple speed invoked constitution checks or take fatigue every hour, DCs go up each time. Yawn, boring. Vast over-generalizations are 20x speed per minute (using the default 5 second rounds), kph = speed per hour, 10x speed in kilometers per day. Honestly, you'll probably just buy a car, or a horse, or a hover tank, or your ship will have a teleportarium. And most DMs will be running at narrative speed anyways and you'll show up right on time for whatever the railroading script wants. Frankly once you know you're on a speed-of-plot railroad go ahead and take your time. Take the 15 minutes ot put on your armor, gather up & repack the backpacks, but more healing potions from the vendor. The castle gate won't be busted open until you get there anyways so it's no use in hurrying and missing the loot from the side fights. Yes, I'm bitter. I didn't take Vow of Poverty, and I didn't have a move speed twice that of the rest of the party, just so we could all show up as a group at the last moment when it was too late to do anything.

Climbing. If you have any athletics, both hands free, and nobody is shooting at you then don't bother rolling. Otherwise it's generally Athletics (normally + strength or dexterity) DC 15+ to go half speed plus an additional meter per raise. It is literally possible to climb faster than you can walk. You're allowed to be that awesome. you can also fall. Deal with it.

Jumping. Get a 4m head start to count it as a running jump, it's a difference of DC 10 vs. DC 15 if you care. Acrobatics + strength and you ger strength in meters plus another meter per raise. Fail and it's a distance of half your strength, rounded up. Height is half the long distance, rounded down. If you're trying just for height then just ignore the horizontal distance. You now know how to make your character an super-Olympic class long jumper.

Swimming. Only check if you're racing, fighting, have your hands tied, or are doing things like trying not to go over a waterfall. Athletics + strength, normally vs. DC 10 to move half speed. Failure is just not moving. Medium and heavier armor is DC 20. People may want to hold their breath underwater. Look, buy a void suit and wear it under your armor, get a submarine or an anti-grav tank that mounts a railgun/missiles, and just tell the normal sharks to push off. Make one of your Follower-3 background interns do the underwater stuff. I put a first level party up against an 80m long daemonhost fish monster. They were fine.

Next time: Social combat. Talk your problems out. Really. Try it sometime. Like when the courtroom has 10 ceiling mounted, computer controlled, las cannons and you don't want to pay your parking ticket.

[Telok]

You know you're here for thosr crits. Admit it. The silence only confirms your guilty pleasures.

"Of course heroes don't always need to solve problems by punching each other in the face, launching bolts of plasma, and accidentally opening a gate to the Warp because someone rolled *really* badly on a Perils of the Warp check. There is also the option to simply talk things over."

Social combat works pretty much like regular combat. Similar to how you usually wouldn't run a full combat encounter for a minor bar brawl with normal peons, you wouldn't run a full social combat for chatting up someone at a bus stop. You use it for stuff like courtroom drama and negotiating a peace deal between ork paladins and assimar pirates. Rounds, surprise, initiative, actions. Overall it's pretty similar. Although the rounds are more fungible in the amount of time that they take. You have to allow for five minute monologues.

Possible editing error, it says that initiative is modified by fellowship and composure instead of dexterity and composure like violent combat is. Elsewhere in the book regular combat initiative is stated to be 1d10 + composure. You'll have to choose. Dexterity + composure is reasonable if you want to add it to regular combat initiative, or you can cut out one of the stats for social combat. Personally I'm pretty happy with 1d10 + composure being the overall initiative check and not having to deal with a difference.

Resolve is social/mental hit points, willpower + composure. Regaining it is a composure roll DC 10 every morning/day/when you wake up for a decent nights sleep. Get 1 resolve + 1 more resolve per raise. Or the DM can give you a resolve for doing a stunt that "furthers your alignment". Mental defense is your social equivalent of static defense, 5 + 5x composure. Composure may be starting to sound like a social god stat but it's completely passive and defensive.

As with violent combat we get a list of actions to take, but it's much shorter and lacks stabbing options. You're doing opposed checks or attacks versus the target's mental defense.
Move: Free action because unless you're sprinting to the other side of the building or running away we don't really care.
Monologue/Study: Half or full action, duplicates aiming. Get +1k0/+2k0 on the attack that has to be your next action. Lose the bonus if you take a reaction between this and that.
Poker face: Full defense action. No attacks and your get +10 mental defense and an extra reaction.
Refute: Your social parry/dodge. Defaults to wisdom + scrutiny or intelligence + lore if you can figure out a way to apply a lore skill to the argument. Intelligence + lore gets a free +5 for being a snotty know-it-all. Optional stunting for convincing the DM to swap out the attributes or skills.
Social Attack: Half action basic attack. Charisma (persuasion) or fellowship (lies & seduction)... I'm wondering if those parenthesis bits are swapped... then the appropriate skill of charm, command, deceive, intimidate, perform, or persuasion, dependent on what/how you're trying to do this.
Speak Carefully: Attack defensively. Full action to get an attack at -1k0 but you get +1k0 to all your refute actions until the start of your next turn.
Support: Aid another. Half action, up to two people aiding, the aided person gets +1k0 per aid. DM discretion (randomly shouting “Your mom!� doesn't count unless they really just need a distraction).
Wordplay: Feint. Half action to use deceive + fellowship vs. the target's scrutiny + wisdom. On a success the target can’t refute you.

Effects. Hopefully you decided what you wanted before committing to an attack. The general options are +/- disposition, compel, and break alignment. If the attack succeeds the target can spend a resolve to not go along with it or they can go along with it. After spending two resolve in one scene they're jaded and suspicious, they won't go along with anything and become immune to further attacks unless you stunt to change tactics. Of course you could always go to lunch and come back later to try again, apparently that works too.
Disposition is "I like Ike", it's specific to Ike. OK, specific to a particular person, place, thing, or action. There's a small 7 level chart of dispositions from fanatic love to ˜kissmesissitude™ (apparently that's more hostile than hostile), with adjustments of +5/+10 to the mental defense of the target at each end of the chart. A successful social attack that the target doesn't spend resolve against can temporarily shift a disposition by one step. You're going to have to repeat this a number of times equal to their willpower in order to make a single step of shift permanent. D&D 3.5 diplomacy this ain't. You'll be coming back to this person again and again just to permanently change their mind on one point.
Compel can make someone do something for a scene, as long as they don't spend resolve and it doesn't violate their alignment or too massively violate their normal behavior. This is your immediate intimidate, quick talk, sales pitch effect.
Break alignment is short to long term brain washing. Get someone to zero resolve and keep them from regaining their entire resolve for a number of days equal to their devotion score. As long as you can keep them from regaining their full resolve back you can compel them to break alignment and do those seriously abnormal behaviors. It comes with a note to be careful about using this on PCs.

There, social combat. I don't use it for lying to bar bums, bribing mook guards, or intimidating random street gangers. I use it for getting crud past customs officials. Well, I did until they got the teleportarium on their ship and stopped trying to convince people of stuff or get people to like them.

We end the chapter with fear and insanity. It's all of one page shorter than social combat.

Fear is an immediate reaction to stuff going on. It's run in ˜levels™ fear 1 = DC 15, fear 2 = DC 20, etc., etc., that sets the DC for the willpower save. Pass and you don't (maybe) care. In combat failure rolls a 1d10 + 1 per check (failed by 5 points), consults the shock table, and applies the effects immediately. Out of combat you just take a -1k0 to anything requiring concentration (not D&D concentration, that's an ongoing effort to sustain spells, this is doing stuff that you don't want to be distracted at, stunt driving, needle point, computer programming, etc.) while it fear source is nearby and if you failed by 10 or more you gain 1d5 insanity points.

In combat you can snap out of shock by making another willpower save at the beginning of your turn. I suppose you could just roll on the person's first turn while being exposed to the fear source. Otherwise you risk people wanting to roll against fear on exposure (normally on another character's turn) and then roll to shake it off before they begin their first turn, effectively trying to have two saves before being affected. My players have, thankfully, been pretty good about this. It helps that most of the fear caster critters are reasonably nasty and worthy of respect. Interesting to note that there's no mention of automatically or getting a bonus to snap out of shock if the fear source goes away. Up to you how you want to run that. I'm good with having the guy manning the machine gun continuing to scream and spray everything with bullets even after the greater daemon is dead.

Shock table:
1 & 2) Only take a half action on your next turn.
3 & 4) Dazzled until you snap out of it.
5 &6) Gain 1 insanity and may not approach the source of fear in any way.
7 & 8) Stunned until they snap out of it, then -1k0 to all checks. Also gain 1d5 insanity.
9) Gain 1d5 insanity and flee at top speed. If that's impossible take only half actions and -2k0 to all checks. May not check to snap out of it until the source of fear is removed or escaped.
10) Gain 1d5 insanity and faint. Unconscious for 1d5 rounds, then -1k0 to all checks until the end of the encounter.
11) 1d5 insanity plus panicked screaming and vomiting. Helpless but conscious for 1d5 rounds (but still conscious so potentially still capable of failing more fear checks), afterwards they can only take a single half action on their turn until they get a chance to rest and recover.
12) 1d10 insanity, fall down weeping & wailing. No actions or reactions, but not helpless, for 1d10 rounds and at -2k0 for the rest of the encounter after that.
13+) 1d10 insanity plus completely catatonic for 1d10 hours. Try not to fail your fear checks this badly.

Actually I'm rather disappointed that there's no option really allowing for panicked full-auto spray & pray.

Insanity is divided into short term trauma and long term disorders. Every time you "gain 10 insanity points" you roll willpower vs. DC 10 +1/5 current insanity points. Failure gets you a roll on the trauma table at +1 for every 5 you failed by. The "gain 10 insanity points" isn't clarified as to if it means 10 at once or every 10 points. 10 at once is basically never going to happen, every 10 could be really nasty once someone gets up around 50+ insanity. I've gone with a middle road of 10 insanity per scene, rare but not once-a-year-of-gaming rare. The trauma table is another 1 to 14+ type table with effects from 3d10 hours of -1 charisma to seriously unresponsive for 1d10 days, with compulsive behavior, screaming nightmares, and hair trigger violence among the other effects. I suppose that the 3 to 9 results on the table could encompass panicked shooting or explosives use, butthet would be the player's choice on how the PC reacted to the short term disorder.

That's short term. Long term insanity is a disorder gained at 40, 60, or 80 insanity points, with increasing severity. At 100 insanity the character goes bat-**** insane and becomes an NPC. Say "Hello" mechanics of Call of Cthulhu. There's n table for these, just a sentence of "maybe like this or that" followed by "DM decides" stuff. Apparently there is a roll of some undefined type against DCs 10, 15, and 20 to resist the effect of your long term disorders.

The long term insanity stuff is obviously an unfinished section. I'd go look at one of the CoC editions (I have 3rd & 5th, 3rd has better atmosphere but 5th has better layout & some improved rules) to work up more rules for it. I'm also not a big fan of how willpower is a sort of anti-fear god stat. Composure is fitting for some of this, and you could work out a quick and dirty recovery mechanic involving fellowship + academic lore or persuasion for psychoanalysis one a timetable of months to years involving wisdom and intelligence somehow.

Hmm... a downtime activity taking months (say 3d10 - wisdom and willpower? minimum 3?) where one person uses intelligence + academic lore (vs. half of the victim's the insanity score?), then fellowship + persuasion (maybe opposed by insanity/10 rolled and kept) in weekly sessions (but just one roll) to give the insane a wisdom + intelligence - forbidden lore (sum of the dice for rolling and keeping, because CoC would totally include forbidden lore as a penalty) save versus a DC of their current insanity level to remove 1d5 + one per raise insanity points. As insanity falls below the 40, 60, 80, thresholds make a second check (after more counseling) to remove the long term disorders. Probably put in something about not being exposed to a similar source of fear, or at least not gaining any more insanity points from it during that time, or else you have to start over. For short term stuff just load your needle pistol up with tranquilizers and pop them a couple of times.

Or, for an easier method, after a month of weekly counseling from someone get an intelligence + academic lore OR fellowship + persuasion roll opposed by the target's willpower + forbidden lore in order to get a wisdom save versus the insanity DC. Get a +1k0 per raise that the councilor got on the opposed roll. Beat the insanity DC and lose 1d5 insanity. Must not have gained any insanity on that month and must not have had to roll on the shock table when exposed to a similar source of fear.

Ok, house rule: On the shock table, the 7 & 8 result becomes 7 -> as written, and 8 -> replace "frozen by terror" with full-auto or multiattack shooting (virtually gain the double tap and quick draw feats for this), all out attacks, or just standing there and screaming.

[Cluedrew]

You know you're here for thosr crits. Admit it. The silence only confirms your guilty pleasures.Actually I'm here for bits like this:

Swimming. […] I put a first level party up against an 80m long daemonhost fish monster. They were fine.I'm not sure why I found it so funny but I did.

[Telok]

Actually I'm here for bits like this:
I'm not sure why I found it so funny but I did.

Big stuff like that, you just make sure it has enough resource points an a mid-high level/power stat, maybe one or two hero points to un-stun with. Works fine.

The boat had towers at the corners with 20m long grabber arms and machine guns. There was a mobile tower with the fishing pole and more machine guns. Someone had a 15m tall mecha with a light anti-space craft gun. One guy got out and ran over to swing a chain axe at it. It was not a given that they would win.

I tell you though, it really helps to have die roller, statistic generator, or even just a good probability chart for estimating outcomes. I worked backward from at least one tower wrecked, the mecha damaged, and someone in medium-bad hurts to stat the monster. I was careful for the first couple fights.

Now of course I just throw stuff at them and see what hits. A hundred+ assorted modrons and a monolith with shields, quad machine guns, and a mega particle projector cannon? Sounds about right. I didn't even get to blow up the hover-bike.

[Telok]

We have another intermission bit that does the opening of Fist Full of Dollars, or Yojimbo if you like the original version better. But you an tell it was written off the western movie.

Then we're on to the setting chapter. Pages 247 to 326. I'm going to skip it for now. Itâ's long, it isn't rules stuff, and I'm not in the mood. We'll come back to it after the DM's section and the monsters/NPCs.

Another intermission between the setting and the DM section, something about a promethian exalt fighting a robot tank. Maybe taken from a Ghost in the Shell episode? I haven't seen all of those but it looks like the closest match I think.

Right, the DMing section. The opening paragraph advertises practical advice, simplifying bookkeeping, character advancement, and other tips. Also take what you want and ignore the rest.

Beginning. Start by figuring out some parameters for the game, players figure out some parameters for their characters, decide on a style, then work with the players about the characters and the campaign fitting together. Initial question checklist, pretty decent. It starts with what bits of the game or setting you don't want and if you need to change any rules for it. Check starting antagonists and allies available, how far you want the game to travel through the setting. Some character considerations, where they're from, how they know each other, do they need to have or not have certain character hooks for this to work, do you need a balanced part and a spread of skills or is massive overlap OK. Face it, you're likely to get several massively overspecialized combat monkeys from players who mostly play D&D/ThingFinder and other combat central games.

Changing the rules. You can change them but things interact. Try to understand what and why before changing stuff. Players who find out that their stuff doesn't work because you changed a rule may be cranky, especially if it only comes up after the game starts. Try to be flexible and consistent. I think it's nice that this gets it's own heading and section. Just a paragraph, but it at least mentions that rules interact with each other and that the players will default to assuming that you're playing by the book.

A paragraph on character uniqueness. Try not to have characters that are too similar and try not to have characters that overshadow each other without having another niche.

Themes. The game tries to use or present some themes for you to use. These are talked about with a little bit about how it can be used in your game. Ancient and forgotten stuff. Exploration of the unknown. Civilization is scattered (even if it's a huge empire) and there's dangerous stuff between outposts. Everything is somehow on the brink of disaster and survival is not guaranteed.

Game styles. There is no one true way. Certain default assumptions are built in (not really in my experience). Then we got some different types with particular character building focus recommendations.

"Vanilla": Return to a world. Crush your enemies. Conquer. No 'focus'.

"Voltron": Powerful individuals, high powered weapons, melodrama, conspiracy, plotting.... orbital strikes in fits of pique... accidental world destruction... a behemoth slowly eating crystal spheres... long lost dead ships... I think this is where my game went. It wasn't the original goal but it sort of ended up there. Focus on artifact backgrounds... Yup. That's us.

"Outlander": Exploration focused. Go to foreign places, meet foreign people, kill them and take their stuff. Focus on lore skills, supposedly.

"Clans": Team party. Everyone in the party is working for the same people, has the same exaltation, is the same race, something like that. May run like Mission: Impossible type TV shows. Focus on backgrounds and differing skill sets.

"Misc.": Assorted other suggestions that apparently didn't warrant a longer write-up. "Bolter and chainsword with daiklaive", apparently the teenaged high-school lol-drama sit-com version of the game. "Invasionâ", stop the invasion with anything from allies to DIY armies to long lost superweapons. "The hero who came in from the cold", intrigue and spy stuff. "Sorcery & sorcery", for the all spellcaster parties. "Walk the earth", randomly wander around fighting random stuff that happens to randomly be nearby.

How to form a party. Common ways to get this particular batch of psycho murder-hobos to "team up", or at least to mostly be in the same place at the same time shooting in the same direction.

"The enemy of my enemy": Threaten them all with a big bad and hope that they'll work together and then stick together. Actually tends to work better than it has any right to because the players are usually willing to play along.

"The gods will it": Authority says 'Do!'. Focuses on mystic/prophetic stuff but any sufficiently authoritative entity/group will do.

"Beyond the cal to action": The PCs knew each other previously and are now all in a clump. Potentially they could have known each other before becoming exalts.

Playing the game. Players control the direction of the game. You'll be improvising a response to their actions as often as they'll be reacting to the situations you throw at the. I find this to be true, although it's probably partially my style. I have a tendency to set up situations, people/places, and time lines, then react to what the players do. Sometimes I can guess what they'll do, but I like to think that my NPC's reactions seem more genuine because I'm as clueless about the PCs intentions and golds as the NPCs are. THere's talk of a prelude session wiht mostly roleplaying and little dice rolling. Good luck on that, my players were perfectly happy to get rolling in the first session without bothering to do any character building.

First session, it suggests starting with a bang. Ditch the whole 'meet in a bar' stuff and start off in na action scene like some of the old James Bond movies. I didn't actually do that, they had a week and a shopping opportunity on board a 3km long luxury starliner before anything started. If this is a first time for the DM or players doing DtD40k7e try testing the limits of the system and being extra lenient with sunting. My players bribed a customs official, went on a drinking binge, bought a baby t-rex, took a krak missile to the face, and decapitated the gang leader after slaughtering 30 gangers (minion rules). Ah, killing characters in teh first session is noted as being discouraging. But it's ok to knock them out with a bunch of crits if they're being timid, just don't make them burn a hero point right off the bat. Consider allowing players to rework unsatisifying characters after the first session. Take an active role in it though, and don't let them totally ditch non-combat skills if the first session was mostly action. Point them at non-combat skills that you know will come up. After that it talks about a shared experience, not an unchangable narrative. It doesn't say 'railroad' but that's what it means. Talk to players and get feedback.

Well that was a bunch of not-terrible advice.

Xp. It talks about banked and total xp, not surprising since you spend xp to buy up skills, attributes, and stuff. Two general ways to award xp, bastract and detailed. The abstract method... 500 xp per session. Well... That'll skyrocket the PCs to godhood pretty fast. 200xp to learn a magic school, 100xp for the second rank, 200xp for the third rank => "I learned blink, summon monster, and portal this week!". So we're talking something like a class or two every three sessions, assuming that you're buying more than just the feats and skills required to get to the next class. Sheesh. I usually throw 300xp - 500xp every decent bit of downtime (about 3 sessions) if they've accomplished stuff and been in a few fights. I may be a bit on the slow side (I also tend to forget unless they remind me) but that 500xp a session is faster than even D&D 5e level 1 to 5 blast. Oof. The detailed method screws around with assigning a difficulty to each 'encounter', task, or scene. There's a little chart, easy at 50xp to very hard at 250xp, in assorted 30/40/50 point increments. Plus a note that you should keep an eye out for a tendency to just kill stuff for xp, and not award xp for just random slaughtering. Frankly I tried this method at the beginning and got bored with it. It works, I just got bored with guessing how 'challenging' any particular event was. No, there aren't really any guidelines beyond a set of adjectives from 'easy' to 'very hard'.

Spending xp. You spend current rank time X amount of xp to buy something up. Remenbering that magic schools, sowrd schools, and power stat are capped by your highest level class. There's an example. There's the xp cost chart, all 9 lines of it. The only thing missing is buying an attribute up from zero. See, there's this crit that can melt off your face for a permanent loss of a point of fellowship... I just pegged it as 200xp like magic and sword schools since raising attributes costs the same as those.

Non-xp rewards. Well there's always loot. But seriously it talks about gaining backgrounds or assets through play. It's just two paragraphs but at least it gets mentioned.

The chapter ends without an interlude and goes right into the victims chapter. Ok, it says 'Antagonists' but really, they're mostly just things for the PCs to kill. Right up to the point where they meet a aboleth that slaps four or five dice of Unluck on one of them, dominates another, turns invisible, and then makes a 20m+ jump into melee.

[Telok]

Antagonists. Your baddies to thump.

Traits: Critters get traits, essentially the same sorts of things that as PC racial or exalt abilities, stuff that isn't a skill or a feat.

* Amphibious - swim speed of 2x land speed and doesn't normally need to make swimming checks. I'll note that there isn't an 'aquatic' trait, so this will be doing double duty if you want sharks or murder-fish. If I'd paid $50+ for the game I'd be annoyed, as it is I don't really care because basic logic can fill in minor oversights in a free game.
* Amorphous - x2 HP and it only has a "body" hit location. Used for giant amoebas.
* Armor plating - natural armor rating, covers the entire critter and represents bone plates, hard scales, shells, exoskeletons, etc.
* Aura - aura is aura, magic armor.
* Auto-stabilized - doesn't need to brace heavy weapons and can use the full-auto burst action as a half action.
* Caster - casts spells, it will list the schools and levels. This says that all critters are treated as having the tested feat (it uses the sanctioned verbiage). Which is odd as the lich entry specifically calls out that they have the tested feat. So I think this is for 'natural' casters, stuff that has innate spell casting abilities. So PC type species I consider tested/untested, innate casting ability I assume is just tested.
* Crawler - half speed but ignores terrain penalties. If it makes sense I also consider this to be spider like wall walking ability.
* Daemonic - extra HP and armor equal to constitution. Add this and a little extra description to any normal critter to up the threat level just a hair. Oh, and the armor explicitly stacks with everything.
* Dark sight - ignores lighting conditions and/or sees in all darkness. This can also be used as a stand in for echolocation, natural radar, whatever extraordinary sense you want that doesn't use light. Personally in that case I'll just write whatever sense it is in my notes.
* Fear - if it has a fear rating then everyone has to check when meeting it, and possibly when it does certain actions too. Um, I also ignore fear from the same sort of critter. If the PCs meet 3 lesser daemons I only call for one check, and the daemons don't need to check for other daemons. It doesn't say to do this, but 'rules as written and only as written' isn't a concept that works for this game. We knew it was a hideous Frankenstein monster of a system when we started.
* Flier - it flies, method dependent on the critter. There's either a given speed or you just double the land speed.
* Machine - artificial constructs, generally immune to the normal stuff that you'd assume, sleep, eating, breathing, vacuum, psychic stuff. They also gain an unspecified amount of armor to all hit locations. This is really for actual robots, golems, that sort of thing. If for some reason you bring up a coal fired robot using pickled mouse brains as a control circuit then that's on you to figure out how it ought to work.
* Mindless - missing (has a zero for) several social and mental abilities. It is immune to social combat, immune to mind control, and automatically fails any associated skill checks using those attributes. This is a critter with even less happening above the neck that an adventurer who managed to get themselves a zero intelligence or something. I, being a programmer, tend to work out a simplified and general decision tree for these types of critters. Something that fits on two lines like "if senses creatures then challenge, if success then await orders else attack. if attacked seek & destroy for 30 minutes else patrol until battery low then recharge & resume patrol."
* Phasing - becomes insubstantial and can go through solid objects. Takes a half action to change phases, gets +10 stealth for hiding in objects, is still affected by power weapons and magic/spells. Everything else about phasing is left up to the DM. Again, the game is free.
* Quadruped - 4 or more legs & not a crawler. x2 land speed.
* Regeneration - heals the listed amount of HP at the start f it's turn.
* Resource stat - it has resource points just like a PC, they even specify an exalt type. I actually treat these as full exalts with a power score equal to their level, its just easier that way and solves all the questions about how many points they can spend each turn, how they regain them, etc. Frankly the incarnate daemons and dark mechanus are kind of weak otherwise.
* Stuff of nightmares - immune to lots of stuff in a similar manner to machines or undead, most importantly bleeding, stunning, and most crits. Specifically they are immune to any critical result other than outright destruction unless it was caused be a spell, power weapon, or other similarly unusual source. This calls back to how you count crits, additive or individual. If you do additive then this isn't a real nasty trait, just sort of annoying that they don't get the midway debuffs at crits 1 to 3 or 4. The monsters won't actually last any longer. If you go with individual crits then this gets ugly, you have to land something like a resilience*3 head shot or a body/limb hit of resilience*5. Those things can just keep coming even though they're on fire and wading through acid.
* Undead - zombies and skeletons, not vampires. Immune to the normal eat, breathe, sleep, also blood loss and stunning. It doesn't say poison/disease but really, does it need to? Interestingly if you look back at the machine trait it doesn't say they're immune to stunning or bleeding. Again, the game is free, you didn't pay $50+ for professional editing and play-testing.
* Unnatural toughness - double hit points, including stuff like the sound constitution feat.

For your "what does it take to splatter a bystander" needs we start off with the general non-combatant. 2s in all attributes, common lore 1, perception 1, craft 1. Speed 4, size/resilience 4/4, static defense 12, HP 4. Unarmed. The system doesn't count anything as 'level 0' so they get to be level 1 on a technicality.

Green troops/common outlaws are also level 1. They get strength and constitution 3, drop craft for acrobatics 1 (dodge=3k2), intimidate 2, scrutiny 1, weaponry 1, ballistics 1. This gives them an extra meter of speed and another HP. A couple weapons proficiencies, leather armor for the arms, legs, and bodies. a knife, an autopistol, and 2 clips of ammo. The stat blocks helpfully give the entire autopistol stat line and the knife has the strength factored into the damage code. Since the level 1 + skill 1 only gives them 2k1 (8 avg.) attack rolls they need something to make them actually a threat to anyone more skilled than themselves. Spraying 6 rounds from the autopistol at 15m does however get them to 5k2 (~17 avg.) attack and 2k2+(1k0/raise) damage. Half a dozen might inconvenience a starting PC who isn't combat focused. The armor rules of penalizing static defense for non-proficiency were either missed of they're supposed to be proficient with light armor. The agony of lacking professional editors and proofreaders, +2 static defense. How will we ever manage?

Regular troops/rebels manage to quality for level 2. Add a point of dexterity, and bring weaponry & ballistics both to 2. Speed is now 6, static defense is 13, 7 HP (sound constitution feat twice). They add the jaded feat, las & armor proficiencies. Flak vest & gauntlets for the body & arms, a light helmet or a lousy flak helm (AP 4 instead of 5, your choice if it is flak or not I guess), makes them more survivable. A knife, lasgun, 2 energy packs, a micro-bead, and a torch means that they have at least basic equipment for not being total pushovers. You wouldn't believe how many PCs still forget to bring flashlights until it bites them at least once. Their base attack is now a respectable 4k2 (~16 avg.), or 7k3 (~26 avg.) for a 3-round laser burst at 30m which puts them in range of actually threatening starter PCs.

Elite soldiers and raiders, level 3. Raise strength to 4 and composure to 3, increase perception to 2 and ballistics to 3. Speed is 7, resilience is now 5 from the level boost, and they have 8 HP... without having anything to earn that extra HP. Maybe their willpower should be 3 as well? They add heavy armor proficiency and get carapace armor to boot, giving them 7 AP in all hit locations. Again either the armor penalties to static defense were overlooked or... something. If you want to be a stickler take 3 off their static defense, reducing it to 10. In addition to the armor they add a rebreather and 2 frag grenades to their equipment. Their shooting is now base 6k3 (25 avg.) or 9k4 (36 avg.) for the 3-round laser burst at 30m. This puts them in range of getting a maximum damage output of 5k2 (17 avg.) on a 21 static defense target.

That's our sort of basic NPC warrior types running around to get killed. We'll get to some actually interesting threats next time. Not that a squad of chaps with automatic laser rifles, basic tactics, and a good kill zone can't be interesting.

[Telok]

Days, days I tell you, between even getting to tun on my computer at home. Well I've got three pieces of appear here. Let's see what's on them.
Ah, how to be a 30+ static defense, 20+ hit point, starting character and get to evocation 5 at 3000xp. An attempt at mapping the class path crossovers from book 2 by hand. Finally, more enemies to shoot at.

Mortal hero level 2: Take an elite soldier, crank up some stats, give them better equipment, and they're pretty much the apex of military forces and generic wandering heroes (non-exalt). Let's see, +1 acrobatics and weaponry, +2 HP, +7 static defense, replace carapace armor with light power armor, swap the knife for a chainsword, drop the lasgun for a pulse rifle. Feat improvements are true grit (1/2 crit damage), luck, and blind fighting.

A couple errors. Under attacks it says 'lasgun' but it has the correct stats for the pulse rifle listing on the equipment. The chainsword isn't listed in the equipment, but it does have an attack line (plus there's a picture). Apparently the armor vs. static defense penalty error is normal, the static defense is listed as 20 which is correct for the attributes, but the power armor should add either a -2 or a -7 penalty.

Sabbat thug, level 2: Our first exalt type npc going around doing his vampy thug life thing. Or is that "vampy thug un-life thing"? Eh, they're a level 2 threat and that's probably about right. Equal numbers of these guys against the regular soldiers would be worth betting on. Physical attributes at 3s, intelligence and wisdom at 1 (apparently you have to be a bit dim to sign up as a sabbat), other attributes at 2s. Mostly what you'd assume a thuggy set of skills would look like, mostly 1s with brawling, weaponry, and perception at 2. That means they clock in at 3k1 shooting, 4k2 melee, 4k3 dodge, 3k1 perception. When I do my game notes those common rolls and any casting rolls or special skills the npc uses are all written down already. Saves lots of thinking during the session. If you really wanted to improve this section beyond just cleaning up typos and errors those would be a great starting point. For feats they have their weapon proficiency and sound constitution once.

Speed 6, resilience 4, static defense 17, 6 HP, no armor. They're armed with their bite, brass knuckles, and a hand cannon. That's the pistol that you have to brace before firing, and considering their ballistics skill they'd better aim too. What makes them not total pushovers is the vampire powers. They get undead resilience, sunlight weakness, blood dependency, 5 resource points of vitae, and dark sight. Effectively a power stat 1 vamp exalt.

Don't get me wrong, they're still a bit of a pushover, just not total pushovers.

Sabbat prince, level 3: A better dressed sabbat thug. Good attributes, including strength and constitution at 5s, +1 or +2 to the skills and add politics at 3. Except drive, his driving is just as bad as the thug's. Honestly a good deal more people should probably have drive, unless you consider it more as as combat/stunt driving skill, which is completely possible. Really though, to live up to his hype (I'm absolutely skipping the descriptions unless its something special) he should have more social skills. But since most PCs don't seem to bother with those much any ways (taking or using the skills) this guy is probably a decent threat socially to a PC just on the 4 charisma alone. This guy gets real feats too, quick draw, fearless, swift attack, and wall of steel. This one doesn't wear armor either.

Speed 9, resilience 5, static defense 22, 12 HP. Attacks are: bite 7k4 for 6k2 rending, brass knuckles at 7k4 for 5k3 impact, and that hand cannon at 5k2 to 35m for 3k2 impact penetration 3. They have the vampy powers, 15 resource points, darksight and fear 1. A reasonable approximation of a power stat 2 vampire exalt. Except that the power 2 vamp would only have 10 resource points.

Frankly I just have a cheat sheet of the various exalt powers and write "(vamp 3 : resource 15)" in my notes. I generally default them to having a power stat equal to their level in my game. It really only gives them a small boost and a number of the npcs/monsters need it.

[Telok]

Playing around with some ideas. Normal people have something like 3k2 perception, in general. Combined with a bit of googling I've come up with a rough guideline for perception-vision rules. Discerning person scale details, things like a missing eye, a sports team logo on a baseball cap, whether the skirt is leopard print or just polkadots, is DC = distance in meters +/- 5 per halving/doubling from size 4. This is assuming normal daytime, normal vision, etc. Examples: At 20m telling the team of a halfling's hat with an ork baby-punting team logo is dc 25 (hey, ork sports is orky), noticing the scar on a human face is 20, and telling that a size 8 small car has a tail light out is a 15. For gross details, like people wearing helmets, wearing backpacks, car windows being busted out, halve the DC. In high visibility situations (bright blue helmets, hikers in silhouetted on a ridge, white car with tinted windows) either halve the DC again or give people a +1k1 bonus.

Just spotting stuff goes at DC = 1/100m of distance - size. Again we assume fairly normal and open situations as the base line. Spotting a halfling out on the tundra at 1000m is dc 8, a human standing beside the open road at 3000m is dc 26, the size 16 boat (about 17m long) out at 2000m is dc 4. This is stuff not hiding and without visual obstructions. Our justification here is based on football pitches and the Grand Canyon in Colarado, USA. Unless someone is really trying to hide you will see them if you are looking for them at the other end of a football field, even if it's a child sitting down. Likewise where the Grand Canyon is about 2000m deep you can stand on the rim a clearly see people camping at the bottom, but if someone says "there is one person walking around down there, spot them" it may take you a minute to do so. Based on 3k2 hitting DC 25 at about 10% and counting a round as being about 10 seconds taking about 1- - 12 tries to spot a human at that distance works out.

I think those numbers should be ok for normal people under normal circumstances. It'll get a bit silly at the 10k7 end of things but jumping, heck probably almost every skill, gets silly at that that end of the chart. I'm a bit on the fence about how to have size affect visula perception. It should, but dealing with the math at the table is something to try to keep as simple as possible without sacrificing believability.

Whatever. On to the monsters. Zoanoids, werewolves mutated by the Warp, and modrons today. We got monsters here. Nice, shoot-first-no-regrets type monsters. I've used the zonaoids as random horrible beasties, actually as parasites/immune system of a megabeast that the PCs fought their way through. It works.

Zoanoid thug, level 2, noted as possibly having other abilities not currently listed as the result of warp mutations. It has some stats in brackets because it has the werewolf warform transformation. Strength 3[6], constitution 4[6], fellowship 1 (not a beer buddy), composure 3, others at 2. Skills are essentially a beastial melee combatant spread, brawl, perception, inrimidate, weaponry, all at 2. No armor but does get useful feats, furious assault (bonus attack if an all out attack wounds), heightened smell, and iron jaw (save vs. stunning). No weapon proficiencies, but I think there may have been an assumption that unarmed/natural attacks are exempt? Speed 5[8], size/resilience 4/4[6/5], static defense 12[8], 6[8] HP. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get my players to stop doing "<roll> Oh, it's low. I missed." and actually tell me what they rolled? Years ago they fought D&D 3.5 barbarians with 6 AC, "Oh, it's low. I missed." Ghaaaah!

Edit: Found an error, static defense is 2 points too low on both sides. I compared to the heavy and the difference was too much for a 1 point dexterity increase.

Abilities are the werewolf powers of shifting, resilience, and silver bane, resource: 6 rage, and regeneration 1. Similar but significantly different from a power stat 1 werewolf exalt. The only gear is some shredded clothing and the attacks are given only for the warform (frankly there's no reason not to just use the 8k2 bite over the claws since it does more damage and they are otherwise identical).

I'll note that the bite attack doesn't precisely match the werewolf exalt, it has an extra die kept. Without a power stat the warform transformation is limited to 6 rounds and the were-resilience gives no armor (not that it was anything special to begin with). However having regeneration separate from the were-powers makes it work on all damage all the time. However I don't think the regenration works against critical damage like the werewolf version does. Of course it also doesn't mention that the zoanoid gets Stuff of Nightmares while transformed either. Mostly I think it suffers from the overall werewolf exalt issues and trying to emulate an exalted monster without just having it be that. Still, a perfectly functional murder-critter.

Zoanoid heavy, level 3, bigger and icky-er. Up strength and constitution to 5, dexterity to 3, and willpower to 4. Add +2 to all the skills except perception (+1 there). Add two HP of sound constitution and power attack. The combat numbers go up about 2 points, resilience by 1, static defense by 3, +2k0 on the damage dice, 10 resource points, more than double HP though. Really it's just a slightly tougher murder-critter. Although, all out attack throws in at 9k4 for 10k2 bitey damage that gets a second try if it wounds. Power attack can move that to 7k4 attack and 10k3 damage, base species as tiefling instead of human puts it at 10k3r1 for -3 static defense. You can always tweak things to be even more murdery.

Monodrone modrons, the simplest and lowest modron is a level 3 "battle shell of unholy living metal". Strength 4, dexterity 2, constitution 5, wisdom 4, willpower 5, other stats are nil. Skills are perception and the fighting skills all at 3. They have nothing else. Speed 3, size/resilience 5, static defense 10, 10 HP. The only feat is true grit (1/2 crits). Unfortunately that leaves open the question of them being proficient with their own weapons. Again I assume that the writer/book is assuming that stuff is always proficient with their own "natural" weaponry. Weapons are a gauss flayer, 6k3 with 80m doing single shot 2k2 TEARING explosive damage at penetration 12 with unlimited ammo, and a 'melee attachment' for 8k3 rending damage (penetration 4).

I'll note that I can in no way figure out how the static defense of 10 was derived. By the normal method it should be 18 [10 -(2x size) + 3x(dexterity + wisdom) -> 10 - 10 + 3x(2+4) = 18]. Frankly all it really does is move the monodrone from 'you will hit it' to 'you can possibly miss it', considering that they're at all of 1k1 for dodging because acrobatics is an advanced/trained-only skill.

"Traits" (I'm not consistent with distinguishing traits vs. abilities, it's all just stuff they do or have as far as I'm concerned) are armor plating 4, aura 4, crawler (1/2 speed, unaffected by terrain), fear 2 (dc 20), mindless (immunities), regeneration 1, stuff of nightmares (ignores non-killing crits & +immunities). They're... durable.

Actual abilities are: Their gauss weapon, if someone takes damage from their gun it inflicts 1 crit even if they still have HP. The fear triggers on charging and all out attacks, but only affects melee range. "We'll Be Back", which is if they've been 'killed' roll a d10 every round, on 8+ they teleport out, after three rolls they stand back up at zero HP. They're not only durable but they also don't stay down worth a dang.

Duodrone modrons are a level 4 threat. Strength and dexterity are +1 over the monodrone, constitution and willpower are +3 over which puts them at freaking 8. Thou shalt not spook this bugger. Skills are up to 4, size/resilience +1 to 6, 13 static defense (still no clue, should be 19) and 16 HP, armor and aura both increase to 6. The only other difference is that their gauss flayer can throw down a 3 round burst and they have +2k0 more dice of melee damage.

The two modrons are, as printed, pretty rough. Every shooting hit will do a point of damage and an explosive crit 1 (arm: drop item, leg: back 1m, body: prone and fatigue, giz: back 1d10m and multiple fatigue, head: blind & deaf 1 round), because 2k2 damage is really quite low to cause wounds but the 12 penetration will put damage through almost all personal armors so the tearing takes effect.

I've worked out from the old AD&D modrons what a DtD40k7e tridrone and quadrone would be like (I did a pentadrone too but I'm not sure about it yet), and they're nasty too. I did do two changes to modrons in my game, one of which I like and one that I don't. I gave the modrons a number of half actions each round equal to their number. So monodrones get one half action, duos get 2, tris get 3... that's good, I can field the exponential numbers of lower modrons that the lore requires without totally overwhelming the PCs instantly. I also switched the gauss weapon criticals through hit points to the melee weapon. That was a mistake. It makes them much less effective because people just try to stay far away and exchange wounds until the modrons drop and teleport out. It makes combats long and drawn out. I also did a thing where I 3d printed some minis for them (fiddly, not very good, but it's not like anything is available anywhere else for them) and ended up with continually increasing numbers of limbs on them (mono=4, duo=6, tri=9, quad=12), but it doesn't actually do anything except give me an excuse for them to also be wall crawlers because of the ever increasing numbers of legs. They're so slow anyways that it just gives them a slightly more interesting movement because they can go over stuff rather than around, it's really minor.

[Telok]

Cultists and heretics oh my!

Your cultist is a level 1 goober, based on a normal person. Wisdom down to 1, willpower up to 3. For skills take a couple lores, arcana, weaponry, and persuasion all at 2. Lucky, powerful charge, and ordinary weapon proficiency. Static defense is 12... 10 - 8 + 9 = 11. I'm getting tired of this. They get a random hand weapon (attack 3k2, damage 5k2 rending), some heretical writings, cheap robes, and a good luck charm. They're just as much of a pushover as a normal person. Except that they also have resource stat 6 in the form of favor. Of course by the rules you're limited to spending you power stat in resource each round, and they don't have a power stat... Lets look at the npc ability description for resource again "follows all the normal rules for resource stats". I know, I know, it's pedantic to insist on these things. But this is just sloppy. I wouldn't pay money for htis.. Oh wait, I didn't. Carry on then.

Really, just give them the power stat 1 abilities of a chosen exalt. It's not that much of a boost (aura 2).

Arch-heretic, what every cultist wan't to grow up to be, a level 3 threat that can't be reasoned with and gets to shout things like "Purge the unclean with fire!" and "Burn the witch!". Attributes are 3s and 4s except willpower 5. Skills go up a point or two and they add ballistics 3. Speed 4 (strength 3 + dexterity 3, ???), static defense 17 (10-8+18=20... plate @ -4=16, ???), resilience 5, 11 HP, lucky, powerful charge, weapon and armor proficiencies, true grit, divine ministration... Really? Divine ministration takes hero points. Fine, call it a 1/day 1d5 heal & remove 1 fatigue.

Eight resource points, plate armor (but no helmet), dire flail, hand flamer, better robes, and the writings plus charm. So um... Same issues as the cultist. As far as I'm concerned same solution, add power stat and associated abilities. Plus, the only time they'll use that ballistics skill is if they grab someone else's gun.

Heretek, a failed promethian, a SR cyber zombie, someone who just couldn't stop trying t upgrade themselves, supposedly a level 2 threat. Attributes 2s and 3s, with intelligence and constitution at 4. Skills are lores at 3s, tech use at 3, ballistics, piloting, and driving at 2s. Speed 5, resilience 4, static defense 12 (should be 14?), 7 HP. Some weapon proficiencies, 2 points of all over armor plating, a laspistol and wrench (no weaponry skill hand weapon), stuff of nightmares, immunity to death crits that aren't to the head or gizzards, and resource 3 as pyros. Equipment includes the gun, wrench, tattered clothes, combi-tool, data slate, illegal data, and a watch.

Call it promethian 1 and they get an extra point of armor. Although perhaps the combination of stuff of nightmares and ignoring most death crits is more powerful than what promethians usually get.

Dark mechanus, the successful heretek, also probably partially the basis for the tech priest class path in book 2. Supposedly this is a level 4 threat but I don't believe it, the PCs in my game ate one for a snack. Most attributes went up one or two points from the heretek, constitution 6 is the stand out but strength, intelligence, and willpower are all 5s. Exactly the same skills. Meaning no brawling or weaponry skills. Speed 8, resilience 5, static defense 17 (!correct this time!), and 14 HP. Weapon proficiencies, crack shot (weenie +2 damage on ranged attacks), 3x sound constitution, and iron jaw. Given that it makes 6k6 vs dc 10 + 5/round of stun I'm going to say this means pretty much immune to stunning... Wait, stuff of nightmares is immune to stunning. The iron jaw, it does nothing. Editing dude, EDITING! Otherwise you'll be like WotC where people made a joke of looking for a prestige class npc stat block that didn't have errors (I don't recall them ever finding any).

4 points of subdermal plating, an integrated (unlimited ammo) plasma gun, and a power sword replace the heretek's stuff. The pyros resource is up to 9 (as per power stat 3), stuff of nightmares + some lethal crit immunity is still possibly better than a promethian, plus they get an extra half action each round from mechandrites (extra cyber-arms for the non-WH40K literate) that's limited to stuff the extra limbs could do.

Ok, seriously, the dark mechanus needs brawling and weaponry. It has a power sword it's proficient in, you shouldn't be rolling 3k1 with that thing (my best guess at how proficient but unskilled combat rolls should go). Plus give it another gun so it has something to do while the plasma gun recharges. Just upgrade the guy to full promethian power stat 4, it's all of +3 resource, +3 armor, a few more integrated weapons, and a couple more useful powers. That would probably get it closer to a real level 4 enemy.

What's next up? Daemons, some animals, and two robots.

[Telok]

Daemons. The cranky "you woke/summoned me up for this?!?!" tear-your-face-off funny guys.

The lesser incarnate daemon is level 2 threat. "Almost impossible to kill by normal means", yeah no, they go down easy. "Presents a deadly threat", yeah still no, maybe to lightly armed civilians but not to 3 or 4 people with automatic weapons. All attributes are at 3 except fellowship and intelligence at 1. Perception 1, arcana 2, brawl 3. Speed 6, size/resilience 4s, static defense 17 (10 - 2*size + 3*dex + 3*wis -> 10-8+9+9 = 20), 9 HP, armor 3/all from the daemonic tag. No feats, no gear, just claws and teeth at 5k3 doing 5k2 rending tearing and no penetration. Daemonic gives them +3 armor and HP, dark sight, fear 1 (dc 15 willpower to not be spooked when one appears), and 7 essence type resource points.

So get this, regular troops, 28% success rate on the fear save, full auto at under 30m is 7k3 vs 20 for 89% hit rate with 60% getting 1 raise and 38% getting two raises, daemon dodge is two throws of 2k2 (dex 3, untrained acrobatics) for about 8 which reduces the hit rates by about 10% each, damage is 3k2 + 1k0 per raise & -3 for armor, averaging about 11/13/15 or 2 or 3 wounds. Down rounding for possible melee and remembering that the daemon can only dodge twice a round. 25% fear * ([first two]20%(3w) + 45%(2w)) & ([3rd+]35%(3w) + 50%(2w)), first two shooters contribute 1.5 wounds each, after that each shooter gives 2 wounds, we get 5 shooters to run it out of HP, playing with statistics I think on average another 5 shots to crit it down. So about 40 regular troops should be able to one round kill a lesser incarnate daemon during which time it might give someone a nasty scratch.

I went and, for my game, gave them the daemonhost exalt powers and two points of spell school from one of 5 schools (1d5 randomize). That's an extra 5 armor except against silver and magic, one more resource point, plus the option to spend a resource point to enhance their spell casting for a turn. It makes them actually dangerous and slightly unpredictable since you don't know what kind of caster they are.

The greater incarnate daemon is what you get when you put a lesser through a cheese grater. Right? No? Oh, it's just bigger. Eh. Really barely a level 4 threat as printed. Again, I give these a 4 power stat and all the daemonhost exalt powers, plus a random spell school (9 magic schools, so 1d10 randomize and 10 = roll twice).

Attributers, strength and constitution go up to 6, willpower up to 5, intelligence up to 3. Brawling goes up to 4. Speed 10, size/resilience 8/7, static defense 14 (12 correct?), 17 HP, armor 6. Feats are frenzy and swift attack. fear 2, resource 14. Attacks become 8k4 claw/bite for 8k3 rending tearing, and warp fire which is a 50m 4k3 flamer attack (dc 20 save). They're tough, mostly from having a big pile of HP. They're reasonably dangerous in melee and at least possess a ranged attack. But a level 2 daemonhost exalt with power armor and a good quality flamer is likely much nastier.

Animals are animals. Not generally a real threat to PCs. Mostly just background noise in a fight so these are sort of generic templates. Still, someone might possibly get kicked by a mule (2k1 attack for 5k2 impact damage). Beast of burden is the aforementioned mule. Size 8 (ok, more like an oxen at this size), resilience 1, static defense 4, 6 HP, we're not following any of the derived attribute formulas here. Ferocious creature is a random predator. Speed 12, size/resilience 4, static defense 22, stwp aside, dark sight, keen sense, and a 6k3 damage bite. Flying creature, a big predatory bird apparently. Size 3, static defense 29, fly 14m, 4 HP, swift attack, claws for 3k1 damage. Slithering creature, similar to the flyer but static defense 24, crawler at 3m, single 4k2 toxic bite. Walking creature, primitive humanoids like gorillas. Brawl 4, speed 7, size/resilience 6/5, static defense 13, 6 HP, 4k2 fist.

For robots we have a combat servitor and an industrial welder bot. Combat bot has strength 5, dexterity 4, constitution 6, composure 3, willpower 2, else 1s. Brawl, craft, and tech use at 1s, ballistics 3. Speed 9, resilience 6, static defense 18 (really 13?), and 14 HP. Armor 6 from machine toughness, the machine type/tag, a claw with 6k2 impact damage that snares, and a multilas 80m of s/8 3k2 reliable energy damage. As a level 3 thing it's throwing 6k3 on single shots and 8k4 for autofire. The industrial servitor is a level 2 version with worse stats, no ballistics skill, and an arc welder as a 10m 3k3 damage flamer (dc 10).

Next time some real threats, dragons and liches.

[Telok]

"Giant killing machines made of scales, wings, and fire. They're also smarter than you, centuries old, and with more magic in their fingernail than the typical wizard has in his entire body. The stats presented here are only representative of a fairly small and young dragon." Sucker's still a legitimate level 5 threat for being "small".

Attributes run from 7 strength through 5s for intelligence, wisdom, and willpower, to 3 fellowship. Yeah, that single 3 is the lowest attribute, probably the arrogance from them being better than you. They have 15 skills. Arcana 4, ballistics 3, brawl 4, weaponry 3, perception 3, acrobatics 2, command 5, intimidation 5, plus 7 more. Speed 11, fly 22, size 12, resilience 10, static defense 6 (should be 15? 6 is if you 2x the dex+wis), 22 HP, armor 10/all.

Attacks are listed as a 9k4 claws & teeth doing 10k3 rending tearing (thus the base claw & bite damage is 3k3), and a flamer style breath weapon at dc 20 dexterity save for 6k3 burnination out to an 80m range. Plus they have a 5 intelligence so they might consider it worthwhile to buy a las cannon or heavy bolter. Although they aren't technically proficient with them so the attack rolls suffer a bit. If you care their dodge is at 6k4.

Feats and abilities include immunity to surprise, perfect memory, iron jaw (at 6k6 mostly immune to stunning), power attack, powerful charge, string minded (I forget, reroll failed mental saves?), unnatural toughness (that's the huge hit points), see in the dark, fear 2 (dc 20 willpower save if you're in melee range and it makes an all out attack or charges), caster: evocation 3 and divination 4.

If you want to power them up you can add more casting, add a sword school, or throw an exaltation on them for resource points, the dragony exaltation from book 2 works well. But they actually earn that level 5 rating being tough, smart, and being able to throw a 9k5 unluck spell at you in the same round that they power attack at 5k4 for 10k5 damage. Do note that playing them as a dumb animal in a confined area pretty much destroys the danger. I threw an unintelligent version without casting at my players as a sort of mutant lightning lizard thing in an organic cave-like setting and they slaughtered it at level 2. It hit a couple people, but they slaughtered it.

Lichdom is an old sorcerer answer to non-exalted immortality. It's a hideous, nasty, undead, murder-your-beloved-to-get-there, sort of immortality but it's still immortality. Any ways they're a level 4 threat.

Physical attributers are 2 & 3s, fellowship 1 (lousy to share a beer with), charisma and intelligence 5s, everything else 4s. They only have 13 skills. Arcana 5, brawl 4, charm 3, command 5, scrutiny 4, stuff like that. No ballistics or weaponry skills though. Speed 5, resilience 5, static defense 17 (I can't come up with that number, I get 23, high wisdom effect), 7 HP, no armor, just the basic unarmed brawling attack at 8k4 for 3k1 impact & fatigue. Gear is listed as expensive robes, a staff, and some old fashioned fancy jewelry.

Feat wise they get all the wizard traditions and all the magic school specializations (1/scene reroll a magic test from that school), plus tested. The wizard traditions are a grab bag of effects based on the school of the spell being cast. Let's see, tally them up and we get: enemies within 5m of an illusion effect are dazzled for a round when you cast it, if you cast an abjuration spell you get aura 8 until the start of your next turn, they have an extra +0 bonus to initiative (no divination school), targets of your enchantment spells (neve rmind, no enchantment either) get -2 static defense even if the spell doesn't affect them, evocations do +4 damage to all and one target of the spell effectively has -8 against it.

They are undead, with the associated immunities, and see in the dark. Casting of evocation 4, illusion, abjuration, & conjuration at 3. No necromancy, transmutation, or divination. Honestly they're mostly a blaster mage with invisibility, minor illusions, some defenses, and a bit of teleportation.

The phylactery is worded in an interesting manner. It's a "they've hidden their death" in it sort of thing. They can't be killed while it exists. Literally nothing else. So run that as you like, the D&D killed->reforms, just flat out doesn't die, immune to death crits, whatever. Undead makes them immune to biology, bleeding, and stunning. Interestingly not fatigue, although that could possibly fall under biology I suppose, and apparently they still heal normally. This was not especially well thought out.

I personally go with adding the rest of the mage line spell schools, switching the highest school around, and trading all but one or two of the wizard traditions for 3 or 4 actually useful feats. Maybe switching some of the brawling out for ballistics and/or weaponry. If you don't run them as a paranoid genius who abuses the porte spell, has custom combo spells, or piles of minions, then they're pretty weak as it doesn't take too much to blow off enough limbs that they aren't a threat. After 35 damage blows through their HP a 15 damage called shot to the head with a bolt pistol puts a complete stop to them. Once the head and arms are off you can just tie them up, stick them in wet concrete, and call it a day.

After this are aboleth and mind flayers. After that I think I'll mostly throw out one or two sentence comments on most of the rest of the monsters.

[Telok]

Ah, on to the tentacle hentai brain screw monsters. Weirdly enough in my game they're reasonable, fair, generally inoffensive as long as you stay out of their territory, and making subtle but effective in-roads on undermining everybody else's societies.

Mind flayers, level 3 brain suckers. Attributes are all 2s and 3s until you get to the mentals, composure 4 intelligence, wisdom, and willpower 5s. 10 skills, arcana and brawl at 4, forbidden lore and scrutiny at 5. speed 5, size/resilience 3/4, static defense 19 (28? again it's like using 2x dexterity plus wisdom instead of 3x, there must have been an edit after the monsters were written), 7 HP. Immune to surprise, perfect memory recall, 1/scene reroll a willpower save vs magic, see in the dark. No armor and no weapon or armor proficiencies. Their only gear is some creepy/slimy robes.

Their attacks are tentacles at 7k4 for 2k2 impact damage and a snare effect, mind blast as a half action 60m (wait, that says 60' which is feet notation, maybe 20m is intended?) cone willpower save vs dc 25 or be stunned for a round, and "eat your g**d***ed brain" which is... in a grapple the tentacle attacks automatically hit the head and gain the tearing property.

They cast divination, enchantment, and illusion at 3 each. So divination and illusion are at 8k5, while enchantment gets 6k3 because it runs off charisma which they have a 3 in.

They are absolutely glass cannons, and not very strong against people with resource points because of the un-stun ability. 6k3 averages 25 which means they can only cast dominate person about half the time unless they over-channel. Swap fellowship and composure stats to make them live up to the terror a bit. Also, don't grapple the melee and dex-whore characters, it doesn't really work. The dexterity characters can nearly always escape as a half action and the melee characters usually throw 4+ strength against the mind flayer's 2 strength. These guys have to be run as genius level psychopaths that use illusions and divinations (disguise, invisibility, detect thoughts, luck) to get close and enspell or strike from concealment. Also, I have no idea why they don't at least carry a couple grenades.

Aboleth are a level 4 complete terror. My players have never killed one even though they've fought at least two. Strength 5, dexterity 3, constitution, charisma, composure 4s, fellowship 1, intelligence and willpower 6, wisdom 5. They have exactly the same skills as mind flayers. Speed 4, size/resilience 8/7, static defense 9 (18 by the standard calculation), 10 HP. Immune to surprise, perfect memory, strong minded, swift attack so they can double melee attack if they want to sacrifice their reaction for it, see in the dark, amphibious, crawler (ignore difficult terrain), and armor plating 3. Their gear is listed as 'slime'.

For a special ability they have "mindslaver" which lets them concentrate on enchantment spells as free actions and targets don't get extra dice/bonuses to resist the effects of enchantments due to the orders given. They effectively ignore the concentration requirement on enchantment spells (stunning would still break it though, no actions) and you don't get a bonus to resist when they tell you to kill yourself.

They have the same casting as mind flayers except at 4 instead of 3. That gives them unluck and forsee (spell based dodge) at 9k5, mirror image and mislead at 10k6, and encore (keep repeating your last action for 4 rounds) at 8k8. Oh, they have a melee attack, tentacles at 8k4 for 4k2 impact damage plus snare & toxic.

Seriously, make use of their aquatic nature, invisibility, and the luck spell. With the average luck spell they can add 5 rolled dice on a jump which is already at 7k5, thus 10k6 jumping which will 62% of the time get them an 11m leap from a standing start.

Lets do a couple more quick ones.

Elementals are a level 2 critter, mostly 2s and 3s for attributes with 1s in charisma and intelligence. Perception, brawling, size 6, 13 static defense (correct for once), 6 HP, 6k3 damage slam attack. They're amorphous and have stuff of nightmares to give them some appropriate immunities. Each type gets a different thing, earth gets 6/all armor, air gets phasing, water gets regeneration 1, fire does energy damage and people within melee range have to save constitution dc 15 each round to take a level of fatigue from heat stroke.

Zombies are a level 1 threat. Attributes 2s, strength 3, zilch for socials and intelligence. Brawling and perception, speed 5, size 4, static defense 12 (should be 14), 4 HP. They're mindless and undead of course, one brawling attack at 3k2 doing 3k1 rending damage. Tremendously unimpressive and only really useful in hordes which are a pain to run unless you use the minion rules. Hilarious if you make a tougher custom zombie and stick them in among the mooks though.

Ghosts, level 2 thingys. DtD40k7e doesn't really do ghosts well by this write up, you'll want to come up with your own version. Strength 3 (???)m charisma 4, fellowship 1, else 2s. Brawl & perception 2, arcana 3, resilience 4, 4 HP, undead, fly 10m, phasing, fear 1 (dc 15), emulate the dominate spell through an arcana + charisma check. PCs can, and will, just shoot the thing to dead-death. Make up something else to use.

Fire warrior is a level 2 soldier with a tau paint job. Flak armor (not legs though), knife, pulse rifle.

Ratling is a level 1 halfling pickpocket type npc. Common lore & larceny 3, deceive 2, no stealth (probably a mistake, I'd give it 3). 3 resilience, 21 static defense (dude, 24), 5 HP, leather armor (no helmet), knife, autopistol.

Squat is a near naked dwarf warrior, level 2. Weaponry 3, resilience 5, static defense 14 (16!), iron jaw (save vs stunning), 12 HP (using the PCs calculation of 2x the constitution + willpower, unlike the other npcs), equipped with an axe (hand weapon) and a frag grenade.

Living ancestor, the dwarf version of a mortal hero, level 3. 20 HP, power armor, chain axe, plasma pistol.

Talon of tiamat, dragonborn version of the level 2 soldier, comes with a built in 1/fight flamer. Wears flak, no helmet, fencing sword and a pump shotgun.

Dragonfire adept, level 3 very offensive caster. Strength, constitution, composure, willpower 4s, charisma 5, otherwise 2s and 3s. Weaponry & ballistics 3, some other skills at 2. resilience 5, static defense 15 (18!), flak jacket, no helmet, fencing sword, meltagun, 2/fight flame breath, evocation caster 3 (fireball at 8k5 doing 6k3 damage).

Tinkerer, weird random gnome npc, level 2. Attributes 1 to 3, has a bathc of skills, lousy with weapons, has drive & piloting, low resilience, high static defense, 4 HP, blind fighting, fearless, evasion, mesh vest (body only), laspistol, web pistol, katar, no armor or weapon feats listed. Has a pile of tech gear. It lists the gnome racial ability, which I suppose is supposed to account in the place of the weapon and armor proficiency. I have no clue what this npc is supposed to represent.

[Telok]

Ork freeboota, level 2, ork version of a standard soldier. Standouts are 4 strength, weaponry 3, ballistics 1, have leathers for armor, an autogun with 3 extra clips (all the other solders have 2), a full hand weapon instead of a knife, and feats: cleave, crushing blow, power attack, and fearless. Spray full auto or charge into melee. Also it's a bit tougher in resilience & HP than the usual soldiers.

Ork nob is the elite soldier version of an ork, level 3. Stronger, tougher, more combat skill (ballistics 3), command skill 4 and charisma 4 for leadership, size is cranked up to 6, has a 'big choppa' great weapon and an 'autogun' which is a typo as it has the stats of a SAW. Huh, the equipment lists both a SAW and an autogun, with 3 belts of ammo for the SAW.

Aspect warrior, the eldarian solders, a sort of base template, level 3. The fluff intimates that you should maybe customize this one a bit, perhaps a sword school or something. Constitution 2, everything else is 3s & 4s with dexterity and wisdom being 4s. 10 skills including acrobatics 3, perception 3, weaponry 4. resilience 4, static defense 24 (should be 28), 5 HP (glass cannon / dodge tanking). blademaster (melee reroll 1/round), blind fighting, swift attack, some mobility feats. Mesh overcoat for 4/all armor, a fencing sword and a syrneth lightning gun, 3 flash grenades, and a silk suit. Plus they have the eldarin warp step 2/scene. Good in melee for all they they're fragile. When fighting them use explosions.

Eldarin farseer, a level 3 caster soldier. Changes from the aspect warrior are a few stats dropping from 3s to 2s, arcana 4, combat skills 2s, should have 3 less static defense, oddly has 1 more hit point (oh, willpower and wisdom went from 3 & 4 to 4 & 3, that explains the defense and HP). Gets common sense, danger sense, spell might, spell penetration, couple other feats. Equipped with a fencing sword and leather armor, no helmet. Racial warp step, casting divination 4, illusion 3, enchantment and evocation 2. So, technically a level 4 character-ish? Certainly under equipped. Give them a hunting rifle and they could get scary with luck and precognition to boost to-hit rolls and invisibility for extra stealth.

Space marine, supposedly assimar, also a level 3 threat. 5s for strength , constitution, and wisdom, rest are 3s & 4s. General combaty skills at 2s and 3s (ballistics & weaponry), speed 8, size & resilience 6, defense 13 (lowest I can get is 15, power armor), 12 HP. Combat master (never outnumbered), 3x sound constitution, all armor and weapon proficiencies. Chain sword, boltgun, power armor. I think that either it's missing a point of resilience form the power armor or the enemies in this section weren't updated from an earlier version of the document. That would explain all the static defense errors and odd 'is the power armor factored in or not?' questions. Plus I think maybe power armor increased your size in an earlier version instead of your strength and resilience, some of the calculations in here would actually work out that way. Eh, they fighty & have good equipment but that's about it.

Grey knight, level 4 buffed space marine. Strength & other attributes get +1s, skills all get +1s, resilience same but +3 HP. Add blind fighting, danger sense, luck, and strong minded. No other changes. It's a +1 space marine.

Chaos marine, space marine with the species swapped from assimar to tiefling. -1 ballistics, +1 weaponry, +1 dexterity, no other significant changes. Mainly a palette swap.

Obliterator, level 4 mutated chaos marine. More physical attributes, less mental attributes, size 8, resilience 7, 15 HP, frenzy feat, no gear as apparently everything melted into one big mutant. Armor 10/all, MP lascannon, heavy bolter, and a 6k3 damage fist. Gets the tiefling ability to reroll 1s on damage, can morph it's two weapons into anything else on the main weapon equipment (not primitive, syrneth, launchers, or grenades though) lists as a full action, has infinite ammo for everything. Autostabilized and machine traits. Shoots full auto as a half action, never needs to brace, has a pile of immunities.... TWF with twin heavy bolters?

Dark eldarin raider, level 3 drow soldier/sniper. Dexterity 5, constitution 2, generally 3s otherwise. Acrobat 3, ballistics 2, deceive 4, weaponry 4, resilience 4, static defense 29 (um, 28?), 5 HP. Fragile and dodgy melee type. blademaster, decadence, sneak attack, proficiencies, mesh overcoat for 4/all armor, officer cutlass, needle gun, 3 smoke grenades, and the racial darkness ability 2/scene.

And that finishes our antagonists. I really really feel like they didn't get updated from a very slightly different previous version where static defense and power armor worked slightly differently. Next up is minions and then I have to decide if I want to do a full treatment of the setting or just blarf out a paragraph or two about it and go on to the second book.

[Telok]

Minion squads! For when you don't want to run that 500 peasant mob one body at a time. It's noted that some things just aren't real dangers to exalts as individuals, this is a way to handle that.

They come in groups of six because "its hard to get more people than that to attack a single person at once". As a bonus if your players just can't play without a battle mat you can use d6s to represent them. You have lots of d6 don't you?

They have the number of people in them, a threat rating, and a damage rating. If you want to make things even easier for yourself you can have the threat rating equal the damage rating. Threat rating goes from 1 to 5, with 1 being peasants or hobos, 3 being pirates or soldiers, 5 being "lusty vampire bitches" (that's a direct quote, don't blame me for that one) or ninja assassins (the inverse law of ninjas is apparently a universal constant here). All the minion squad rolls will be [members]k[threat rating], so your 6 ninjas have 6k5 to attack, dodge, parry, juggle grenades, etc., with a reminder that you can't keep more dice than you roll. Yeah, you whack 4 of them and they're down to 2k2.

Minion squad static defense is threat rating x5, every hit kills a member of the squad, every raise on the hit kills another. It gets silly sometimes with a really good single pistol shot offing 5 or 6 mooks, but I'm sure you can come up with something like they were all standing in a line or there was a barrel of fuel to explode. Blast weapons just kill a number of minions in the squad equal to the blast rating. Yes, fireball is the ultimate mook killer. However they forgot the flame weapons. I just have the squad try a dodge against the flamer dc and kill a member on failure plus another per fail-by-5. It works fine.

The damage rating is supposed to go from 1 to 4. The minions do rating x5 damage on a hit with another +5 damage per raise. If the minions have ranged attacks then the effective range of those attacks is the damage rating x10 in meters. Occasionally the dice gods will favor the GM and a 5k2 dr:2 zombie squad will roll a 40-something to hit someone and do 35 damage.

Minions can team up with and help non-minions. You just add the threat rating to the result of whatever roll the non-minion is making. There's a bit about not benefiting form more minions than your fellowship attribute, I'm not sure what that's about. If someone targets the teamed up minions the minions go down normally. I guess that means the character's fellowship is the number bodies in of the minion squad that they can have helping them.

There are a few 'sample' minion stats, like: Space pirates, threat rating 3, damage rating 3 rending (knives), damage rating 3 impact (guns).

I've used random piles of dice out of the dice bucket for big huge crowds, whatever side the die landed on was the number of people in the squad. I've used d12s for a gibberling horde and d8s for some soldier squads (protip: pull out your dice before the game if you need a specific type or more than 4 or 5 of them). I've also treated the squads as a unit for ganging up bonuses, so having 3 minion squads surrounding you in melee gives them that +2k0 to hit bonus. I do not give them blast weapons or flamers, I don't think there's a good/easy way to run that. Maybe grenades as a sort of special attack that... nah. Maybe later or something. But full auto weapons work out quite well. Go ahead and embrace recombining busted squads into whole ones, it just makes life easier and prevents the players from leaving a bunch of 1 and 2 member squads laying around to clutter up the melee environment.

That's it for minions. They're quick and dirty, work pretty well, and a 30d6 army-ish of soldiers lets you make even high level exalts worry a little bit.

The next section is an "example of play". Skip it. It isn't exactly great prose and I didn't figure anything more out about the system from reading it. Plus the color coding to each person is annoying to read (for me), especially the mid-range green and the yellow-tan colors.

Oh, yeah, the setting chapter. Well I'll do a quick cover of it and leave it up to you guys if you want me to cover it in any more depth before I head into the second book.

The chapter obviously enough describes the setting. I've actually found it fairly useful. It does a description of a number of crystal spheres, some locations and people within it, a picture or five, and some possible adventure seeds. It begins with a history section: 'war in heaven' 40k years ago, Syrne appear, C'tan appear, eladrin orks dragons modrons created, fight, ends when unknown great devourers appear. Dragon empire 10k years ago, Sigil discovered, dragonborn created, Bahamut vs Tiamat ends it all. more war 7k years ago, eldarin unseal Pandemonium and release aboleth on accident, assimar and tiefling created, Pandemonium resealed. Eldarin piss off 5k years ago, go decadent, create Slaanesh, Abyss created, elf gods all die but Correlleon, dark eldarin take up with Loth. Stuff 1000 years ago, council and factions formed in Sigil, nothing got done. Current, humans showed up, everyone says 'what the heck?' then go back to fighting and stuff.

Crystal spheres poof about in astral sea, Sigil is a weird torus in the middle. Astral sea takes decades/centuries to cross between spheres, Syrne portal network allows safe entry into the Warp that cuts travel down to weeks/months, Sigil is some sort of beacon used for navigation in the warp. Sorcery uses the Warp, spelljammers mix magic and technology, need a navigator to get through the Warp and special shields to survive it. Umbra stuff, two paragraphs, meh.

Sigil, Lady of Pain, no gods allowed or else god and all followers everywhere get flayed alive and souls destroyed, giant space innertube floating in the astral sea, super-metropolis city on the inside walls. Lots of faction junk the players probably won't read at all so they can't tell the difference between rent-a-cops and Harmonium enforcers.

Crystal spheres: Abyss(nasty daemons), aborea(elfy tourist trap), arcadia(creepy farm), acheron(orks on cubes), baator(stuff, mutations), beastlands(tyrannid stuff), bytopia(mining & megacorps), carceri(nesting doll weirdness), commorragh(not a crystal sphere, Loth nest), elysium(eldarin exeniphobes), gehenna(dark eldarin slum), grey waste(greyscale war zone), mechanus(modrons), mount celestia(stuck up godlings & assimar enforcers), pandemonium(windy caves & death).

There. Ok, book 2 or does everyone have an absolutely burning need for more setting stuff?

[QuadraticGish]

I wasn't terribly interested in the setting. For your game, did you bring out any of the homebrew others have made for the system?

[Telok]

I wasn't terribly interested in the setting. For your game, did you bring out any of the homebrew others have made for the system?

I admit to being completely unwilling to slog through it all to fond the good stuff. I scanned some, but...

An update without spellcheck!

Dungeons the Dragoning 40,0000 7th Edition, Book 2: For a Few Subtitles More

The cover is how someone with a hero point and a warped sense of humor reacts to being caught in an orbital bombardment.

Checking the index... 4 races, 2 exaltations, <error: null value> classes, some feats, new spells that we already covered, the gun katas also already covered, vehicles, spelljammers, more alignment details, finally some new equipment options for weapons bionics and drugs.

The chapter intermissions are all a pastiche of Wrath of Kahn. I won't bother mentioning them again.

The intorduction talks about a few of the things in the book. It also makes it clear that this is an unfinished work. I presume that if it were ever finished then that sentence would be taken out.

Races/Species.
Thri-Kreen: live fast, die young, 50 year life span, live in hives, mysterious, don't sleep.
+1 dexterity or wisdom, +1 acrobatics and perception, size 4 (human/tau).
The smaller pair of can ready an action as a free action once a round and let them reload weapons in half the time. Ah, ok. I had to look up the ready action. It's draw/sheathe weapons, dig something out of a bag, apply bandages or poison, that sort of stuff. Nice, not too much and not too fiddly.
Physicals: the whole praying mantis thing, egg layers, sweet tooth, and apprently it's really easy to tell gender if you can smell pheremones. I bet there's a auspex app for that.
Playing them: act but not rashly, like cutting edge tech, prefer performance over reliability, tend to adopt things from other cultures, don't really bother with saftey protocols... Sooo... sort of a race of player characters?

There's definitely less integration with the game setting in this book. No mechanics associated with the whole 'no sleep thing', interesting. I wonder what they think about being knocked unconsious?

Kenku: pioneers of space flight, explorers, great magical talent, like owning small maneuverable ships, too individual to be a societal presence.
+1 intelligence or wisdom, +1 performance and pilot, size 3 (dwarf/elf/gnome).
+2k0 to acrobatics checks and can glide, 2m down and horizontally equal to speed each round. They even instinctiviely try to do it if they fall while unconsious.
Physical: bird people hexapods with arms-legs-wings, light for their size, no body fat and eat more, good memory, bad smell, can't taste spicy.
Playing them: flighty, mild clausterphobia, strongly independedent but generally helpful.

I can see a tendency towards dexterity & dodging characters. Nice to have you're own built in hang glider.

Kobold: xenephobic, like dragonborn but created as miners, reproduce quickly.
+1 charisma or dexterity, +1 arcana and stealth, size 2 (halflings).
Once a round as a free action they can sacrifice 2 HP to get a resource point that is immedately spent and does not count towards the per-round resource point limit.
Physicals: tiny dragonborn, weak, fragile, scrawny, tend to wear armor all the time, adapted to toxic gasses and high atmospheric pressures.
Playing them: cunning bloody-minded survivors. Xenephobic vermin or socially not-too-mal-adapted short people. Practical and don't do charity or manners.

Charisma? Arcana? The racial power is nice, good trade off there. No actual in-game stuff for the whole toxic gasses thing.

Dryad: plant people, "mono-gendered" faux female, long lived, need large natural areas to spawn.
+1 fellowship or willpower, +1 animal ken and scrutiny, size 4 (human/tau).
Mind control pollen! Psychoactive tree semen! Ahem... Charm person as the spell using level + fellowship in place of the magic test. I do seem to recall that the pollen comes from the male plants. Also, I have questions about air filtration systems and people that don't breathe/smell.
Physical: green-brown plant ladies, "mating" magically templates stored seeds and doesn't require a gender, eventually turn into trees & spawn, then turn into treants after spawning.
Playing them: 1000 year lifespan, like unspoiled winderness & elves, not luddites though. I forsee dryad oriented security companies that use magitach to allow them to run security murder-bots in their tree stage.

So, a weirdly sex oriented plant species. That pollen man...

The exalts

Wraiths: wierd ghosts, use ectoplamic energy to make shells, recharge in the umbra.
Powers... Start off referencing their resource stat. Let's see.
Resource stat is "Plasm", amount equal to power stat plus resolve, resolve being composure + willpower. Lose 1 resource per day unless they 'wrap themselves in the trappings of death', regain 2/hour in the umbra.
Fine, now the powers:
* Dematerialize - as a half action spend a resource point and gain the phasing monster ability for rounds = resolve or just zoom off into the umbra, your personal stuff goes with you. If you went umbral you can't be incorporeal/phasing and it takes another half action and resource point to return to the real world.
* Second Death - get the undead traits, if you would take damage instead lose resource points... equal to wounds I assume. At zero resource points they get kicked back into the umbra but leave their gear behind this time. It takes a day to create a new real world shell and they don't regain... they don't regain resource points during this time. Doesn't that mean they just get zapped back into the umbra again? Oh, they wait until they regain resource points then spend the 24 hours rebuilding the shell. If they would take any damage during this time they prema-die. Right, note to self: never ever run out of resource points as one of these.
* Deathsight - always see the umbra, see "leftover" magical auras, spend a resource point to see what a corpse was seeing when they got made a corpse.
* Ghost Dice - ...

Take this outside and beat it with a shovel.

Fine. When spending resource points to get more rolled dice keep them separate. Any 1s and something bad happens. Any 10s and something good happens. No mention of what happens if you have both. There's a lousy example.

Power stat is "Synergy" that has something to do about looking different as it goes up.
* level 1 whispers - May use the augury spell rolling power stat + wisdom for the casting roll.
* level 2 poltergiset - Spend a resource point to gain telekinesis. Range 3m per point of power stat, functional strength is willpower, can't be used for fine enough manipulation to attack with things until pwer stat 4. No opportunity attacks.
* level 3 curse - As a half action pick a target within 3m per point of power stat. That person rolls on the psychic phenomina table, if it would go to perils of the warp reroll unless you spend 3 resource points. You are unaffected by any results of this power. Which is interesting when it summons a greater daemon. How does that work?
* level 4 shroud - Gain armor equal to your resolve, does not stack with anything. If you're incorporeal it turns into aura instead. I wonder if the phasing power is supposed to make you immune to normal weapons and damage? Ah, I am reminded: magic, magic weapons, and power weapons. So that daiklaive will chop you right up.
* level 5 ectoplamic form - 1/session gain the Amorphious trait, instead of doubling HP get temporary HP equal to your current resource points. Lasts one scene. Temp HP are temp. Meh?

Huh, that's it. No playing one, no DMing for one, no adaptations, no tells, no advice. Just rules text. Well, first thing as soon as you run out of hit points you should go umbral. Most forms of 'lessen the crit' and 'ignore the crit effect' won't help you. Hmmm, incorporeal spellcaster is a decent option. You have zero methods of regaining resource points except by resting except by spending a resource point to go umbral and waiting. Then it costs a resource point to come back. Healing? Unknown. Well you're going to want to start with 5s in willpower and composure, that's for sure. Weird.

Dragon Blooded: draconic ancestery, born with it, natrually tough, natural magic ability. Let's see.
Powers:
* Draconic aura - your exalt tell does damage. Once you've spent 2-3 reasource points in a scene it does 2k1 energy damage to everything within a radius of power stat meters every minute. Yourself and your gear are excluded from this. At the 4-5 points per scene level it happens every round. At 6+ points in a scene it cranks up to 3k2 damage. Of course it pretty much lasts the whole scene. Right, no spending resource when you ride in the car, I like the upholstery.
* Hot blooded - when hit with energy damage spend resource points to reduce it at a 1:1 ratio. At power stat 3 you get a 2:1 ratio in your favor.
* Claws - talons or retractable, your choice. 1k1 rending melee brawling either way.
* Blood quickenting - your dragon type. Air, earth, fire, water, wood. Get a +1 to an attribute, your claws get a bennie like balanced/+1k0 damage/penetration/etc., get something for spending a reource point except for wood who gets to walk through plant based difficult terrain and can do the healing surge thing as a free action.

Power stat is "Aspect". That's it.

Resource points are "Breath", equal to double your level and completely refreshed after 5 minutes of rest. That's possibly the least amount of resource points of anyone but it's a really really easy & fast rechage.

* level 1 mind - see in the dark and +1k0 to focus power spell casting rolls.
* level 2 wings - get wing based flight, x2 your land speed, at power stat 4 it doubles up to x4 your land speed.
* level 3 heart - get the flamer templated breath weapon, costs 2 resource points to use.
* level 4 skin - get armor AND aura equal to your power stat. Oh, well the armor is 'meh' but the 4 aura is nice.
* level 5 maxium dragoning - 1/session use of the dragon form spell. No casting roll required.

Well you're slightly pushed towards melee capability with the claw bennies. Very few resource points compared to other exalts, you'll need to carefully conserve them in combat. Which will suck if you want to dodge, parry, or multiattack more than once in a round. The wings are nice, although I think it would make armor a bit inconvinent. It also makes the lack of carrying capacity rules a possible nuisance point too. I'm unimpressed with the flamer breath because of the limited resource points. After every fight expect this exalt to heal up if they have an hour long break. Possibly everyone in the party gets to heal up if they can cast a healing spell. You're really hard on the scenery if you spend 4+ resource points, but you're a horrible monster in a grapple. Flammable/delicate environments are not your friend, heck you can trash... Ok, 2k1 hits a 15 about 12% of the time but 3k2 gets to 20 about 21% of the time. You can trash cars just by cathing on fire while you try to dodge pedestrians.

[Cluedrew]

Thri-Kreen: […] Playing them: act but not rashly, like cutting edge tech, prefer performance over reliability, tend to adopt things from other cultures, don't really bother with saftey protocols... Sooo... sort of a race of player characters?I think it is the first part that separates them from player characters: "act but not rashly". PC have of course have two subspecies: those that act rashly without thinking and those that plan for hours an never act until acted upon.


So, a weirdly sex oriented plant species. That pollen man...Yeah for some reason that just happens when you get an "all female" race.

Anyways still enjoying the posts, did my best to chip in.

[Telok]

I
Yeah for some reason that just happens when you get an "all female" race.

Anyways still enjoying the posts, did my best to chip in.

I googled, as a species I think dryads are "monoecious" (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/seasonal-allergies-blame-male-trees). Not that the author looked it up or anything.

I'm glad you like this. It gets pretty quite in here except for my nattering along.

No update today, but a tool. I converted my statistical die roller for DtD40k7e into html & javascript. This is the one that produces percentages and ranges, not individual die rolls (although it did serve as the basis for that code and isn't hard to modify).

Use instructions are pretty simple: Copy the posted code into a text file and save it as a html file. (open your preferred text editor notepad/vim/emacs/gedit, select code here, ctrl-c here, ctrl-p in the editor, "save as", type in "bob.html") Then you should be able to either just double click it or you can open it with you web browser. It uses bootstrap and javascript, which in turn means it uses jquery. That probably won't be an issue but if the page doesn't seem to work right try turning off or making an exception in your ad blocker rules, . I tested in Firefox, it should work fine in other browsers, if you're using IE and having problems go get a modern browser. I have to support that piece of crud in my job, I'm not doing that as a hobby. GITP uses jquery, so that's probably not going to be an issue and bootstrap is relatively common on the web so I'd be surprised it that had any problems.

Output looks like
2k1r1x9-5
C: 0.111 | T: 1
--------11%--------
C: 0.136 | T: 2
--------24%--------
C: 0.161 | T: 3
--------40%--------
C: 0.019 | T: 6
--------42%--------
C: 0.040 | T: 7
C: 0.041 | T: 8
--------50%--------
C: 0.042 | T: 9
C: 0.044 | T: 10
C: 0.045 | T: 11
--------63%--------
C: 0.046 | T: 12
C: 0.023 | T: 13
--------70%--------
C: 0.003 | T: 15

C is the percentages, 0.63 + 0.046 + 0.023 = 0.699, that's the jump from 63% to 70%. T is the rolled number. This tells us that for roll 2, keep 1, reroll 1s, explode on 9 & 10, then subtract 5, 50% of your results will be in the 1 - 8 range.

So here's the code

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=11" />
<title>Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition Die Roller</title>
</head>
<!--
DtDroller.html

Copyright 2020 Telok <telok@Spleen-9825> [email protected]

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
MA 02110-1301, USA.
-->
<body>
<h3><label>Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition Die Roller</label></h1>
<br/>
<div class="col-sm-1"></div>
<div class="col-sm-11">
<div title="Instructions">
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Format WkXrYxZ[+ or -]N</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Required: W = rolled d10s, X = kept dice</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Optional: Y = reroll numbers <= this number on a die</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Optional: Z = explode on numbers >= this number on a die</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Optional: N = add this much to the final tally</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Limitation: W, X, and N are limited to one or two digits</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Limitation: Y and Z are limited to the number 1 through 9</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Limitation: +N absolutely must come last</label></div></div>
<div class="row"><div class="col-sm-12"><label>Examples: 7k4 or 4k2-5 or 4k2r2 or 5k3x9 or 7k4r1x9+10</label></div></div>
</div>
<div class="row form-group">
<div class="col-sm-3" title="Data Entry">
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="computationText" placeholder="7k4r1x9+10" ></input>
</div>
<div class="col-sm-3" title="Execute Computation Button">
<button type="button" class="btn" onclick="computeRoll()">Compute</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<div class="col-sm-1"></div>
<div class="col-sm-10" title="Results Display"><textarea rows=25 style="overflow: hidden; overflow-y: auto; width:40%" id="outputTextArea"></textarea></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>


<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css">
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>

<script>
var maximum = 1000000;

function computeRoll(){
var firstArray = [];
var dice = document.getElementById("computationText").value;
if (dice.length <= 0){
dice = "7k4r1x9+10";
}

for (i = 0; i < maximum; i++){
var tArray = rollXkY(dice);
var temp = parseInt(tArray[0]);

if(temp < 0){temp = 0;}
firstArray.push(temp);
}

firstArray.sort(function(a, b){return a-b});

var statSize = firstArray[maximum-1] - firstArray[0];
var statArray = [0];
var countArray = [0];
for (j = 0; j < statSize+1; j++){statArray.push(0);countArray.push(0);}
var pointer = 0;

for(k = 0; k < maximum; k++)
{
var temp = firstArray[k];
if(temp == statArray[pointer]){
countArray[pointer]++;
}
else if(temp > statArray[pointer]){
pointer++;
statArray[pointer] = temp;
countArray[pointer]++;
}
else{
//error -- reset
for(m = 0; m < statArray.length; m++){
if(statArray[m] > temp){
// stop here
statArray[m] = temp;
countArray[m]++;
pointer = m;
}
else if(statArray[m] == temp){
// also stop here
countArray[m]++;
pointer = m;
}
}
}
}

var fractional = 0.0;
var fracCount = 1;
var setText = "";

for(n = 0; n < statSize; n++){
if(statArray[n] > 0){
var percentage = parseInt(countArray[n]) / parseInt(maximum);
fractional = fractional + percentage;
// System.out.printf("C: %.3f | T: %d %n", percentage, statArray[i]);
setText = setText + "C: %.3f | T: %d \n";
setText = setText.replace("%.3f", percentage.toFixed(3));
setText = setText.replace("%d", statArray[n]);
if(fractional > (0.1 * fracCount))
{
fracCount++;
// System.out.printf("--------%3.0f%%--------%n", fractional*100);
setText = setText + "--------%3.0f%%--------\n";
setText = setText.replace("%3.0f%", parseInt(fractional*100));
}
}
}
setText = dice + "\n" + setText + "\n" + dice + "\n";
document.getElementById("outputTextArea").value = setText;

}

function rollXkY(dice){
// pass in XkY+N as a string (the "+N" is optional), returns a 2x11 int array
var diceToRoll = 0;
var diceToKeep = 0;
var amountToAdd = 0;
var rerollOn = 0;
var explodeOn = 10;

var kIndex = dice.indexOf("k");
var pIndex = dice.indexOf("+");
var xIndex = dice.indexOf("x");
var rIndex = dice.indexOf("r");
var negativeAdd = false;
var haveKeptNumber = false;

if(pIndex < 1 && dice.indexOf("-") > 0){
pIndex = dice.indexOf("-");
negativeAdd = true;
}

if(kIndex == 1){
diceToRoll = parseInt(dice.substring(0, 1));
}
else if(kIndex == 2){
diceToRoll = parseInt(dice.substring(0, 2));
}
else{
var retArr = [-1];
return retArr;
}

if(rIndex > 0){ // we have a reroll number, kept is between k & r
diceToKeep = parseInt(dice.substring(kIndex+1, rIndex));
rerollOn = parseInt(dice.substring(rIndex+1, rIndex+2));
haveKeptNumber = true;
}

if(xIndex > 0 && haveKeptNumber){ // have reroll & explode numbers, already got k
explodeOn = parseInt(dice.substring(xIndex+1, xIndex+2));
}
else if (xIndex > 0){ // we have an explode number, kept is between k & x
diceToKeep = parseInt(dice.substring(kIndex+1, xIndex));
explodeOn = parseInt(dice.substring(xIndex+1, xIndex+2));
haveKeptNumber = true;
}

if(pIndex > 0 && haveKeptNumber == false){
diceToKeep = parseInt(dice.substring(kIndex+1, pIndex));
amountToAdd = parseInt(dice.substring(pIndex+1));
}
else if (pIndex <= 0 && haveKeptNumber == false){
diceToKeep = parseInt(dice.substring(kIndex+1));
}
else if (pIndex > 0){
amountToAdd = parseInt(dice.substring(pIndex+1));
}

if(diceToRoll <= 0 || diceToKeep <= 0){
var retArr = [-1];
return retArr;
}

var rollArray = [];

for(p = 0; p < diceToRoll; p++){
rollArray.push(rollD10(0, rerollOn, explodeOn));
}

rollArray.sort(function(a, b){return a-b});

var sum = 0;
var counter = diceToRoll-1;
for(q = diceToKeep; q > 0; q--){
sum = sum + rollArray[counter];
counter--;
}

var returnArray = [0];
if(negativeAdd){
returnArray[0] = sum - amountToAdd;
}
else{
returnArray[0] = sum + amountToAdd;
}

for(r = 0; r < diceToKeep; r++){
returnArray.push(rollArray[r]);
}

return returnArray;
}

function rollD10(incomming, reroll, explode){
var current = 0;
var limit = 100;

while (current <= reroll && limit > 0){
current = roll1d();
limit--;
}

incomming = incomming + current;

if (current >= explode){
incomming = rollD10(incomming, reroll, explode);
}
return incomming;
}

function roll1d(){
return Math.floor(Math.random() * 10)+1;
}

</script>

[Telok]

The classes in this book are organized in a really annoying manner. By level, then alphabetically. The class tracks are as follows:

courtier: negotiator -> courtier -> diplomat -> legate -> emissary
monk: -> brother -> disciple -> monk -> immaculate master -> grand master of flowers
druid: ovate -> oak-knower -> druid -> archdruid -> patriarch
arcane knight: spellsword -> swordmage -> runeblade -> arcane kight -> sorcerer-swordsman
magitek gunman: spellshooter -> riflemancer -> gunmage-> bulletwizard -> witch-sniper
sheriff: -> deputy -> sheriff -> constable -> marshal -> judge
heavy: big shot -> crazy ivan -> heavy weapons guy -> walking gunshow -> living fortress
operator: hunter -> marksman -> sniper -> quickscope -> targetmaster
tech-priest: mech-wright -> enginseer -> tech-priest -> technomancer -> magos

If you're trying to follow a track then you'll be doing lots of scrolling around. Every time I reference these classes it annoys me. AD&D did it's spells this way, and that was fine since the spell level was a big deal and the spell lists weren't too large. But for these short, five item groups, it's a terrible way to do it. Grrr. The class tracks aren't even in alphabetical order. Plus there are a number of classes that aren't in the class tracks, they're all spaceship oriented and start as level 2s. They do have a sort of track structure since they're mostly chains of 2 to 3 levels of classes, but they're just mixed into the jumbled mess here.

I'm going to follow the tracks, since that makes sense to me, but not in any particular order, just as they show up in the book as the levels go. I'll do the starship classes last.

Big shot. Ok, starting with the heavy weapons guy/gal class track.
Prerequisite skills are ballistics and brawl. Attribute advancements charisma, constitution, and strength. Skills athletics, ballistics, brawl, intimidation, tech-use. They get access to the crisis zone gun kata and a +1 HP for completing a level in the track.
Feats:
* 1: Gives light armor, +1 HP, ordinary weapons, optional any weapon proficiency, storm of iron (full auto ROF gets +1), unarmed warrior (+1k0 unarmed damage).
* 2: Requires storm of iron. Gives medium armor, +1 HP, las weapon proficiency, optional any weapon proficiency, hardy, steel rain (your full auto attacks can't be dodged).
* 3: Requires steel rain. Gives heavy armor proficiency, +1 HP, bolt weapon proficiency, nerves of steel, bear hug (your grapples are a little harder to escape).
* 4: Requires nerves of steel. Gives extreme armor proficiency, +1 HP, optional any weapon proficiency, death before defeat, rock and roll (get +5 to hit every continuing round of full auto fire, walk your shots to the target), crushing bear (automatic unarmed damage when grappling in addition to normal effects).
* 5: Requires rock and roll. Gives power armor proficiency, +1 HP, any weapon proficiency, fearless, iron jaw (constitution save vs. stunning), optional iron curtain (personal forcefield, spend hero point to ignore damage for a round).

You get minor bonuses in unarmed combat and grappling, +10 HP over the whole track, and you love automatic weapons. Like, really, really love automatic weapons. A quick re-scan of the crisis zone gun kata tells me that you're taking the first rank of the gun kata (don't need to brace heavy weapons) but you really wanted the point blank gun kata that works with full auto attacks.

Lets see, level 4, ballistics 4, take a focus on say the SAW, base full auto is 10k5r1 (no dodge) and you fire 11 rounds. Hits 45 about 50-ish% of the time, but since it's a full auto we care about exceeding the target's defense, since most don't go past 25 call it 5 raises on average, that gives 7k2 damage. Hm. Second round of full auto gets a +5 to hit, that just puts us at 8k2 damage... Looks about average 20 damage a turn, slowly increasing until you hit 9 rounds of autofire and have to stop to reload.

It's interesting that the biggest boost to your attacks comes at level 2 in the form of the steel rain feat. This class really wants the point blank gun kata and can't really do much other than fight and play around with the tech-use skill.

Brother. Right, the monk track.
Prerequisite skills are brawling, athletics, and acrobatics. Attribute advancements are wisdom, willpower, and dexterity. Skills are academic and common lore, the prereqs, scrutiny, stealth, and weaponry. I'd suggest starting with some ballistics skill then, guns are nice to have. Sword schools of setting sun, shadow hand. and diamond mind. Completing a level nets you a +1 armor while you wear no armor, eventually you too can bounce small caliber firearms off your pecs.
Feats:
* 1: Gives unarmed warrior (+1k0 damage), catfall, fleet of foot (could just buy a nice cyber-leg), wholeness of body (+armor = wisdom when unarmored, doen not require consiousness), optional skill focus on athletics and unarmed weapon proficiency. Not really sure why your combat proficiency is optional... Wait, I do, it's just to use the unarmed category of weapons. Power fist, you know you want it.
* 2: Requires unarmed warrior, which means you can enter from that first level of heavy weapons frood so there's your gunnery skill. Gives improvisational warrior (+1k0 damage using improvised weapons), ki strike (unarmed is magic weapon), evasion, meditation (1/session meditate for an hour to regain a spent hero point), combat sense (replace dex with wis for dodge and for level on aimed attacks), and optionally strong minded.
* 3: Requires ki strike. Gives stunning fist (spend a hero point to give your unarmed attacks the shocking quality for a round, terrible), diamond body (+4 armor while not wearing armor, not vs. magic weapons), improvisational master (+2 penetration for improvised weapons), defensive mobility, and an option for skill focus in acrobatics.
* 4: Requires stunning fist. Gives unarmed master (+0k1 unarmed damage), perfect self (gain aura = wisdom and meditate for an hour to ignore eating, drinking, sleeping for a day), improvisational savant (gain an appropriate special quality for improvised weapons, trashcan lid -> defensive as an example), and optionally swift attack (double attack) and wall of steel (free parry). You want wall of steel and swift attack, really, you do.
* 5: Requires unarmed master. Gives iron fist (+4 penetration for unarmed attacks), feather step (walk on any surface including liquids), counter attack (free riposte on successful parry), step aside (free dodge).

Reasonably kung-fu with a good splash of Jackie Chan improv. In theory you can end up with 14 armor (10 vs magic weapons) and 5 aura while naked (+1 for a very few specific exalts that can get stats to 6). Oddly good for the unarmored swordsman trope too, the unarmed specific feats won't do you much good but nothing stops you from using any weapons. Well, lack of proficiency I suppose. A couple lores and stealth are nice in a 'you can try not to be a total combat hound' sort of way.

Stunning fist is just trash. Change it to a resource point and it won't completely suck. Do something about that terrible DC of 15 or perhaps give the triple attack feat at the 5th level to try to force lots of saves.

However it is about 24+ feats and three skills at 5 to complete this class, not including three sword schools, attributes, and your power stat. Plus you'll need the academy feat at character generation to use anything but unarmed weapons. This is not going to be a fast class track to advance through. It does however lend itself to stunting with the mobility skills and improvised weapon usage. Interesting to note that combat sense actually lets you bypass the non-proficient issues with weapons as long as you take an aim action. Well, not flamers sonce they don't take an attack roll, but all the others. I still think you want that ballistics skill, if you can justify 4 additional feats taking the big shot class first isn't a bad idea. I suppose you could completely swap out the first levels and just accept the loss of your immaterial armor until it exceeded light armor. Which would be about level 4 anyways wouldn't it?

[Telok]

druid: ovate -> oak-knower -> druid -> archdruid -> patriarch
courtier: negotiator -> courtier -> diplomat -> legate -> emissary

Going to do these two next. They both share a couple interesting things, advancement, class completion bonuses, feats.

Negotiator, an actual non-(physical)combat class track. I actually suggest skipping the first level and getting in through another class, there are several that work. Prerequisite skills are persuasion and scrutiny. Attribute advancements are charisma, fellowship, and composure. 17 skills out of the 27 total, missing acrana, physicals except stealth, technicals except craft, and the combat skills. Class completion bonus is +1 resolve.

Feats:
* 1: Gives Courtier's Privilege (+1 to certain backgrounds, max at 5), any peer, research (auto-know about local rulers, politics, & trivia stuff if it isn't totally unreasonable to know the things), skill focus in charm, optionally eidetic memory and a skill focus in anything.
* 2: Requires Peer(Any), a really easy requirement in addition to persuasion 3 and scrutiny 2. Gives protocol (like common sense but more socially angled and uses common lore + intelligence DC 15), courtier's privilege (AGAIN), good reputation (social bonus with a peer group), decadence (vs. drugs & stuff), optionally chem geld (+10 mental defense against seduction & pleasure temptations) and another open skill focus.
* 3: Requires protocol. Gives courtier's privilege (AGAIN), master of disguise (fast disguise without penalties and always assumed to have/scrounge the supplies to pull it off), meditation (one hour downtime to regain hero point 1/session), optionally another peer and skill focus.
* 4: Requires master of disguise. Gives courtier's privilege (AGAIN), just as planned (hero point to have retroactively planned/done something in the last 10 minutes that happens/comes up now), optionally another good reputation and skill focus.
* 5: Requires just as planned. Gives courtier's privilege (AGAIN), air of authority (does not exist error), armor of contempt (prevent anti-alignment results of social combat), optionally another peer and skill focus.

Editing error, the feat air of authority doesn't exist. I'd suggest replacing it with another social feat like foresight or an asset like education or linguist.

So, enter through the beginning no-requirements mercenary class (it has peer(merc unit) in it) and skip into courtier. That gets you weapon and armor skills/proficiencies while you lose research, skill focus in charm, and one instance of courtier's privilege. Or you could be a gnome daemonhost/atlantean, start with an armor proficiency and rely on evocation or conjuration in combat, you could also start with ballistics 3 and the academy feat. Why is this potentially so nice (aside from the courtier's privilege)? It takes 15 feats to power through the whole class track. Compare that to a monks' 24 feats. If you assume the same level of spending xp on attributes, skills, sword/magic schools, and your power stat then the courtier track is 900+ less xp to complete. You even get to level 5 with just 11 feats. And level is a cap or bonus to so many things. Buying up a magic school from 1 to 5 (atalantean or daemonhost) costs as much as 10 feats, 1000xp.

Oh, courtier's privilege, the list is: allies, backing, contacts, fame, followers, and status. Sink your starting backgrounds into wealth and toys, or holdings if you really want a spelljammer without hijacking one. Just as planned is totally abusable in a good player's hands, in a good way. Calling the ship to arrange a teleport or orbital bombardment is just the start.

Oh, hey, think of two human paragons with just as planned blowing all their hero points to out plan each other. Remind anyone of something?

Druid, the hippy tree-hugger class right? Take note, wraithbone power armor is not made of metal. Just saying it's an option. Prerequisite skills are animal ken and brawling. Attribute advancements are wisdom, willpower, and composure (should we assume that the composure boosts come from dried herb smoking?). Skills are animal ken, brawl, common lore, craft, forbidden lore, medic and scrutiny. They get three spell schools, divination, transmutation, and healing. The bonus for completion of a class in this track is interesting, the feat Improved Animal Companion.
Feats:
* 1: Animal companion (get a single threat 1, damage 1 minion, simple ritual up to 1/day to re-summon), light armor proficiency, druid's oath (as long as you don't wear metal armor and "at least attempt to respect nature" 1/round reroll warp crap from healing & transmutation spells), heightened senses (any), and an option to take ordinary weapon proficiency.
* 2: Requires druid's oath. Gives heightened senses, wild empathy (use social skills on animals), wild shape (at will, no duration, turn into animal, shift one physical attribute point, gain one of quadruped amphibious or crawler), mana generator (allowed to aid another with spell casting rolls), and an option for light sleeper.
* 3: Requires wild empathy. Gives heightened senses, nature sense (know all animals & natural hazards within 10m), nekomimi mode (partially humanoid wildshape retains equipment & use, lasts 5 rounds, no wildshape for the next hour), and options to take unremarkable and spell specialization in transmutation.
* 4: Requires nekomimi. Gives heightened senses, danger sense, expert tracker (dc for tracking is reduced by 5), optionally virgil's guidance.
* 5: Requires expert tracker. Gives heightened senses, optionally you can take beastmaster (get an additional minion), improved wild shape (move another attribute point, gain another trait from armor2, aura2, dark sight, flyer), and naturalize (screw with nearby technology).

The improved animal companion feat adds 1 to your companion's threat or damage ratings. This has an unfortunate side effect in that you'll end up at 5th level with a minion squad of 2 critters, threat 2, damage 4, rolling 2k2 dice. For 4 levels your minion is at 1k1 because there's only 1 minion. For my game it's house ruled that improved animal companion gives one of the +1s or another minion, to a max of 5 ratings or minions. That at least gets you to 3 minions at 3k2 or 3k3, not great but at least potentially relevant.

Don't ask how improved wildshape is supposed to stack flyer on top of the wildshape trait. Well, it's fantasy so I suppose flying snakes, flying fish, and stuff like griffons is reasonable.

Right, it takes 15 feats to power through the whole class. The only thing you lose for violating the druid oath is a warp crap reroll. Although an atlantean druid with a wraithbone bionic heart would get basically 4 rolls and be able to choose 1 or 2 of them, at least with transmutation and healing spells. That's really good odds of landing a completely trivial warp effect. You'll be a heck of a shapeshifter and a brawler when it's all done, but you'll want to start with decent physical attributes for that. It isn't a tremendously focused class, but it isn't weak or shut down by not being in a wilderness setting either.

[Telok]

Deputy, lawman of the spheres. Lets see how this goes. Lone Ranger? A John Wayne western? I don't htink that Clint Eastwood did any westerns where he was 'lawful'? Any others? More recent perhaps? Well, the prerequisite skills are ballistics, command, and intimidation. Attributes are constitution, dexterity, and charisma. Skills are athletics, ballistics, brawl, command, intimidation, perception, scrutiny. Huh, sounds like a D&D fighter skill list. Gets three gun kata, clay pigeon, tin star, and point blank. The class completion bonus is +1 backing (law enforcement) to a maximum of 5. I think we're assuming that the player actually interacts with law enforcement beyond shooting at it and running away.
Feats:
* 1: Gives light armor proficiency, ordinary wepon proficiency, common sense, peer (law enforcement), improvisational warrior, and optionally any weapon proficiency. Pretty basic starting skill set, no special perks.
* 2: Requires peer (law enforcement). Gives laz weapon proficiency, paranoia (+2 initatice & DM may secret check for hidden threats for you), jaded, hardy (faster natural healing), optionally blind fighting and sound constitution.
* 3: Requires jaded and paranoia. Gives good reputation (law enforcement), double tap, armor of contempt, improvisational master and an option to take bolter weapon proficiency if you want it. Double attack, what's normally a high level social combat defense, and better able to use beer mugs and chairs in bar fights.
* 4: Requires good reputation (law enforcement). Gives crack shot (+2 damage, pfft), combat master (never outnumbered), death before defeat (hero point to ignore effects of a non-killing critical), two weapon fighting, an an optional proficiency in exotic weapons.
* 5: Requires crack shot and good reputation (law enforcement). Gives fan the hammer (shoot up to 6 times), hip shooting (take a shot when double moving), true grit (halve crit damage), and an option to take sound constitution again.

Oddly I'm not tremendously impressed. It's a sort of general shooty class with a little touch of brawling and embedded law enforcement social stuff. The guardsman track from the first book is probably a better shooter barring the gun katas. Being stuck at light armor argues for a high dexterity & wisdom.

Hunter, with prerequisite skills at ballistics 3 and stealth 1 I think this is another sniper class. Attributes are intelligence, wisdom, and dexterity. Skills are ballistics, decieve, disguise, larceny, perception, scrutiny, stealth, and tech-use. I guess you're relying on someone else to drive the getaway car. Two gun kata, clay pigeon and silent scope. Class completion bonus is +2 to stealth checks while remaining still. Definitely a sniper class.
Feats:
* 1: Gives catfall, lead fingers (work buttons, levers etc. by shooting them), ordinary weapon proficiency, any weapon focus, and trance (stay still & aware for days = constitution, instant exit).
* 2: Requires lead fingers. Gives far shot (removes distance penalties), laz weapon proficiency, any weapon specialization, zen shooting (use perception in place of ballistics skill), and the options to take skill focus in perception and heightened senses with sight.
* 3: Requires far shot, meaning there are a couple other classes you use to get into this one. Gives deadeye shot (halve the called shot penalty), raven's eye (automatic spot someone in a crowd, disguises still work though), exotic weapon proficiency, any weapon specialization, and the option to take skill focus for scrutiny.
* 4: Requires raven's eye. Gives crack shot, foresight (10 min examination allows +5 next intelligence check), combat sense (swap out wisdom for dexterity dodge and for level in aimed shots), and options for skill focus in stealth and another weapon specialization.
* 5: Requires crack shot and raven's eye. Gives pinball wizard (manipulate electronics at short range with guns), sharpshooter (no penalty for called shots), sneak attack (halve armor of unaware targets), defensive mobility (+5 defense against opportunity attacks), and an option to take weapon proficiency with syrneth weapons.

Og shoot good.

Well at least lead fingers, zen shooting, and pinball wizard are reasonably interesting. Raven's eye and all the preception stuff is on theme. Trance and foresight are a little odd. Sneak attack, combat sense, and defensive mobility are stupidly late. This really wants to be a on-shot-sniper class but I'm not seeing it. If you could grab danger sense early hopping into the level 2 rogue class and then levels 3+ on the assassin track would probably be a better sniper, gun kata not included.

I'll have to look into the cross track advancement possibilities between the two books. It would be really nice to be able to switch around at second/third levels.

[Telok]

arcane knight: spellsword -> swordmage -> runeblade -> arcane kight -> sorcerer-swordsman
magitek gunman: spellshooter -> riflemancer -> gunmage-> bulletwizard -> witch-sniper

Well well well. There are two different versions of the second book floating around out there. I have one version on my phone and the second on my home computer. I hadn't noticed since I barely get to turn on my home computer once or twice a week. Versions 2.1 versus 2.2, and now I need to do a quick comparison... Ok, Looks like the classes got ordered and the Air of Authority feat showed up. Nothing else that I glanced at looked any different. Needless to say the version on my phone has now been replaced. Oh, air of authority just makes your social combat moves to influence people affect everyone who hears you and is paying attention.

Right, so arcane knight. Required skills are arcana and weaponry. Attribute raises are charisma, strength, and dexterity. Class skills are arcana, academic lore, acrobatics, athletics, command, performer, weaponry. Class completion bonus is that the spellcasting focus power check DCs are reduced by 1 when you use an implement. Or say it as when you cast a spell the DC to cast is -1 as long as you use an implement. This is very much not the same as +1 to cast because that would affect the saving throw DCs of your spells.

Feats:
* 1: Gives arcane blade (all weaponry attacks count as magic), arcane mark (on a weapon hit plus arcana check mark someone to generally track, negate them ganging up on you, and +5 to hit them), tested, basic weapon proficiency, plus the options to take light armor proficiency and extracurricular study (gain a rank in any sword or magic school, up to half your level rounded up, you will always take this feat).
* 2: Requires arcane blade. Gives iron tower (use melee weapons as implements), mana generator (aid another with spellcasting checks), danger sense (never surprised), any weapon focus, options to take the melee 2 weapon proficiency and extracurricular study again.
* 3: Requires mana generator, meaning you can skip in from level 2 druid. Gives spell parry (spend a hero point to parry a single target spell affecting you, DC = casting check), any weapon specialization, options for melee 3 weapon proficiency, medium armor proficiency, and extracurricular study again.
* 4: Requires spell parry. Gives swift attack (double attack), sword beam (), daggerspell stance (casting doesn't provoke opportunity attacks), options to take melee 1 weapon proficiency and extracurricular study again.
* 5: Requires sword beam. Gives blademaster (one weaponry reroll a round), spell shield (as long as once hand is free gain a bonus to aura equal to your arcana, so it stacks), optional heavy armor proficiency, optional and weapon proficiency, and optional extracurricular study again.

Technically it's a 15 feat class track. You probably want the armor feats, or at least one of them, another weapon proficiency or two, and all the extracurricular study chances. Just buying a daemonhost or atlantean magic school from 1 to 3 is... Ok, that's 300 but only because you started with a free point in it. it's basically a half price first or third rank in a sword/spell school. Although if you're only in this class track there are no magic or sword schools in your classes, so they'd be double cost to buy during free study.

I'm pretty sure you're expected to take evocation, it's charisma based. Honestly there's not much here outside of combat stuff and any non-combat spells you pick up. Charisma, command, and perform. Not that you can't have other stuff, just that the classes aren't providing easy access to it.

Magitek gunman. Requires arcana and ballistics. Attributes to raise are charisma, dexterity, and wisdom. A few more skills, acrobat, arcana, athlete, ballistics, charm, academic and forbidden lore, perception. Class completion bonus is being allowed to use the elemental shot feats additional times per session (shot 1 at 1st & 2nd, shot 2 at 3rd & 4th, shot 3 at 5th). Two gun katas and two magic schools, elemental gearbolt, point blank, evocation, and conjuration.
Feats:
* 1: Gives light armor proficiency, basic weapon proficiency, gun blessing (DC 20 arcana check to unjam, count as magic and improve gun quality one step (no stacking)), elemental shot 1, and an option to take any ranged or throwing weapon proficiency.
* 2: Requires elemental shot 1. Gives minor magic (learn any one magic school), ranged 2 weapon proficiency, evasion (move a little on a successful dodge), elemental shot 1 again, and optionally any weapon proficiency.
* 3: Requires 2x elemental shot 1. Gives obtain familiar (meh?), ranged 1 weapon proficiency, decadence (unaffected by drugs/alcohol), meditation (1/session regain a hero point), elemental shot 2.
* 4: Requires elemental shot 2. Gives strong minded (1/scene reroll willpower vs a spell), throwing weapon proficiency, combat insight (swap in intelligence for dexterity on dodge or for level on aimed shots), and elemental shot 2 again.
* 5: Requires 2x elemental shot 2. Gives double tap, spell bullet (prep an ammo shot with a spell), sharpshooter, and elemental shot 3.

Elemental shots are 1/session half actions that add a rider effect to your next shot (sets the damage type too). You choose an effect from a list when you take the feat. It's pretty limited and the use of this class track exclusive feat prevents any cross classing into the track. Shot 1 is incendiary & energy damage, snare and impact damage, shocking and energy damage. Shot 2 is move hit targets 10m & impact damage, reroll 1s & 2s on damage and do rending damage, on hit knock prone (flying targets immune) & impact damage. Shot 3 sets damage to explosive type and either "roll psychic phenomena with exploding dice" or the weapon gets tearing and targets get 1 less resilience for taking wounds.

Once again the combat <foo> feat that swaps an attribute in for dodge/aimed shots comes silly late and on the wrong class attributes. Charisma, charm, and two lore skills at least wave at giving you things to do outside of combat.

Tech-priest class track, for all your "I wanna cyborg" needs. Interestingly it really is completely compatible with the promethian exalt. Weirdly it even works with the werewolf exalt as cybernetics meld with shapeshifts. Required skills are tech-use (starts at 3), academic lore, and craft. Attributes for the class are intelligence, wisdom, and constitution. Class skills are tech-use, common and academic lore, weaponry, ballistics, drive, pilot, craft, medicae. I'll admit that I find it a bit odd how few classes get driving and piloting as skills, even though they do represent more the stunt/combat versions rather than civilian applications. Class completion bonus is getting the feat Upgraded, which gives you a bit of cyberwear based on the rarity rating. It starts at rare for the 1st level mech-wright and 2nd level enginseer, then very rare, mythic rare, and finally an artifact bionic. That's a fairly strong incentive to see these classes through to the end.
Feats:
* 1: Gives any weapon proficiency, ANY armor proficiency. sound constitution (+1 HP), jaded (immune non-supernatural fear), mechanus implants (+1k1 vs. air toxins and gas weapons, datajack, fluff stuff), lumen charge (charge batteries & power electrical stuff by taking fatigue).
* 2: Requires mechanus implants. Gives mechadendrite use (may take and use mechadendrite bionic implants), ferric lure (full action force pull unsecured metal item willpower in kg, 20m range), chem geld (+10 mental defense against seduction and pleasure temptations), another set of any weapon and armor proficiencies.
* 3: Requires mehadendrite use. Gives binary chatter (make 56k modem sounds, +2k0 all tech rolls with computers), sound constitution, eidetic memory (perfect memory), another set of any weapon and armor proficiencies.
* 4: Requires binary chatter. Gives lumen blast (inherent [willpower]k2 energy blast with shocking & 10m range, constitution save or gain fatigue), iron jaw (constitution save vs. stunning), miracle worker (improve starship combat emergency repair action), another set of any weapon and armor proficiencies.
* 5: Requires lumen blast. Gives ferric summons (double distance & weight of ferric lure), strong minded, sound constitution, another set of any weapon and armor proficiencies.

There are no optional feats here. There are good feats here. It is 26 feats to complete this class track and, personally, I think it would be quite worth it. Hilariously this is sort of the 'duplicate Darth Vader' class track. However for 6 feats and having tech-use 3, lore and craft at 2, you can get power armor proficiency on anyone plus some other decent stuff before topping it off with a rare bionic implant. You have good non-combat options built into the class though I will say, this isn't intrinsically a social combat class track.

[Telok]

Suddenly, spelljammer officer classes! With a heavy dose of ST:TNG in them.

Level 2 operations officer & level 3 chief of engineering.
OpOff requires tech-use 2 and crafts 1, CoE wants tech-use 4, crafts 3 and the miracle worker feat. A tech-priest can skip OpOff then. Ability raises are intelligence, wisdom, and willpower. Class skills are academic and common lore, command, craft, pilot, and tech-use. Class completion bonus is +1 shield regen for any ship where they're serving as the chief engineer. Let me just check... Ok, that's a really minor boost. Don't worry about it.
Feats:
* 2: Offers miracle worker (emergency repairs can happen on two things at once), bodge together (your ship can make an extra extended repairs between resupplying at civilization), hardy (always count as lightly wounded for healing times), jack of all trades (may attempt untrained advanced skills and get +1k0 for untrained basic skills), and an optional skill focus.
* 3: Offers jerry rig (+1 hull point when doing emergency hull repairs in combat), engineering team leader (you get 1 additional crew for engineering actions), sound constitution, one required skill focus and one optional skill focus.

I suppose that some information on the space combat system is relevant. Other than, obviously, hull points and shield points a fairly important factor is you crew number and quality. Basically the crew numbers from about 10 to about 25, each representing anywhere from (if I recall correctly) 5 to 100 people, crew quality runs from 1 to 5. For ship actions in combat you allocate crew to various things and then roll [allocated crew] keep [crew quality]. It's pretty well balanced, although you want one of the useful skills (several socials, arcana, ballistics, weaponry, tech-use, pilot) if you're running a low quality crew. See, if a PC acts as an officer they can substitute their skill ranks for crew quality. The emergency engineering actions to do stuff like extra regen shields and repair hull damage rolls against a static DC and gets extra points by how many raises past the DC you get.

So miracle worker means you don't have to split your allocated engineering crew into two pools to do two repairs at once. Team leader is basically +1k0 to an engineering action roll. Jerry rig and the class completion bonuses are really pretty minor. Bodge can be important if the PCs can't just hop back to a nearly civilized port for repairs. I'm not sure that I'd ever really consider taking the chief of engineering class. Most class tracks lock in the 4th level with a usually exclusive feat from their 3rd level (or a combo that would be annoying to get elsewhere), so you're delaying a level up. On the other hand it is just 400xp total for either class, which isn't too big of a hill to climb.

Level 2 science officer & level 3 chief arcana officer.
Starfinder, Pazio's faux-scifi version of Pathfinder had the issue where non-engineering & non-computer spellcasters got kicked in the balls when it came to space combat because there weren't any allowable actions for them to take that involved their main skills (and none for spell casting anyways). They patched that several years in, but they could have just not screwed up in the first place. DtD uses the arcana skill for several important things like sensors, navigation, and the magitech computers (many spells aren't useful in space combat, but they aren't disallowed either).
SciOff requires acrana 2, academic lore 2, and forbidden lore 1, while CAO requires the detailed analysis feat, arcana 4, forbidden lore and academic lore 3. Ability raises are intelligence, wisdom, and composure. Class skills are academic lore, arcana, animal ken?, command, forbidden lore, medic, and tech-use. A good spread, although animal ken is really quite "what the heck?". Class completion bonuses are +1 sensors for the ship where the character is acting as the arcana officer.

It occurs to me that there isn't anything preventing you from doubling up on the officer positions. In fact it's pretty... I think it's explicit in at least the gunnery officer position. It is explicitly excluded from the captain position, I don't remember if the piloting bit is exclusively one officer. Mind it would be unusual to do many different actions, if only because splitting the crew into ever smaller dice pools can cut your success rates down.

Any ways, the sensors bonus affects basically some opposed tests and navigation, which is really minor, plus the ship's combat initiative. Since initiative is 1d10 + sensors + maneuverability this is actually a decent boost.
Feats:
* 2: Detailed analysis (+5 to active scanning rolls), gain access (+1k0 to tech-use hacking and all forms of jamming), eidetic memory, optional speak language and skill focus.
* 3: Tachyon beam (1/session in ship stuff use arcana for any other action using technobabble), rotate shield frequency (1/session arcana check DC 20 to remove shield disruption [disruption reduces shield regeneration]), minor magic (gain first rank in any magic school), optional speak language and foresight.

Well each one is only 3 required feats, so that's a plus. SciOff can probably justify a fair bit of non-combat and non-space use for it's feats. I'd probably only take CAO if I really wanted minor magic though. Just because 1/session is a little low for a campaign with lots of spelljammer action, and that's when you'd likely take these classes.

Level 2 tactical officer & level 3 chief of security.
We're giving the melee centric PCs who have no useful non-combat skills something to do, boarding actions and repelling boarders. It actually comes up relatively often and gets pretty useful. TacOff requires weaponry and ballistics 1, this is really low hanging fruit. CoS requires weaponry and ballistcs 3, plus worf barrage. Attributes to raise are strength, constitution, and composure. Skills for the classes are athletics, ballistics, brawl, command, pilot, weaponry. Class completion bonus is +1 crew quality for resisting boarding actions, which is important because boarding action resistance is primarily based on crew quality.
Feats:
* 2: Master of bombardment (reduces DC of orbital bombardment to 20, allows reroll of missed shot scattering), worf barrage (1/scene reroll a space combat critical damage that you inflicted), unremarkable (hard to pick out in a crowd), light armor proficiency, and an option for any weapon proficiency.
* 3: Worf effect (if an enemy can target you they have to until they make a DC 15 intelligence test), match frequency (1/session after an active scan double the disruption of your weapons on one enemy ship for an undefined amount of time), guardian (use the parry action to take a hit for someone), any weapon focus (+2k0 to hit), option to take any weapon proficiency and medium armor proficiency.

Combat stuff. Still, command and piloting for those who are desperate. I suppose you could take them for the armor and weapon proficiencies and/or skills if your regular class track never offered them. Pretty sure you'll only take CoS if you're happy tanking hits, although I think maybe the doubled shield disruption would last the whole fight.

Boarding actions are the attacker sends X crew over and then you make opposed rolls: Attacker = of X keep (highest of crew quality, weaponry, brawling) vs. Defender = (crew quality) keep (crew quality). Winner inflicts crew casualties on the loser. So, yeah, cranking a quality 3 (average) crew up to 5k5 (or 7k6 with ship servitor murder-bots) because you sank 700xp-800xp into these two classes might not be a bad idea in some games. Plus you're pretty good at orbital bombardment, and everyone likes orbital bombardment.

Level 3 captain, and level 4 commodore.
Captain requires command 3, politics 2, and persuasion 2. Commodore requires command 4, politics 3, and persuasion 2. With moderate investment in social skills you can grab either one and ignore the other. Attributes to raise are fellowship, charisma, and composure. Skill list is the socials, not animal ken this time, plus pilot and perception. Class completion bonus is a free specialty in a social skill, so skill focus.
Feats:
* 3: Acceptable losses (1/turn give +1k0 to a ship action and lose a crew at the end of the turn, generally bad), lend expertise (do the picard speech action and if you have 3 ranks in the appropriate skill get +2 crew quality for actions using that skill for the round), luck, strong minded, and an option to take common sense.
* 4: Hailing frequencies (even if you aren't captain if you hail the other ship they must answer and you drop out of space combat into social combat), redshirt shield (when the ship is in port 1/session the first time you would take damage a crew member appears and red shirts it, saving you the hit), peer(any), virgil's guidance (1/2 price devotion), and the option to take any skill focus.

This is a strong set of classes, just not a primarily combat set. Acceptable losses is acceptable because there's a medical triage action available in space combat that can undo last round's crew casualties. The picard speech captain action increases your crew quality by 1 for the round, it's a sort of default "I don't know what to do" captain charisma check action. Doubling it for say, gunnery checks, can be pretty good if your party topped out at 3 or 4 ballistics skill. Considering that your party probably topped out at 3 tech-use (and that's apparently you) instead that might be a better option. Redshirt shield is just hilarious and, amazingly, will absorb any amount of damage. 4k2+30 car bomb going off next to you? Redshirt shield.

Hailing frequencies is something that you, as the DM, need to be prepared for. This isn't a game where random encounters to drain resources is a thing. you can do that if you want, but the game isn't built to support it. If nothing else at least figure out a reason for the other ship(s) to be attacking and a few appropriate insults to throw around. It should buy the PCs at least a round or two of breathing room to put out fires or set something up.

[Telok]

Right, that's the classes done. Feats, assets, and the exaltation thingys are up now. As before I'll skip most of the feats since they're mostly covered in the class descriptions.

Animal Companion: Seriously underpowered and/or just janked. It gives you ONE threat 1, rating 1, minion. That's a 1k1 roll for 5+(5*raises) damage and it has static defense 5. It dies when someone sneezes in it's general direction. Problem is if you replaced it with obtain familiar you would have to find something else to give druids for the class completion bonuses. I do NOT suggest giving them obtain familiar every time, having a necromancer PC with several zombies was annoying enough when the player wouldn't use a dice roller. Thought: Replace this with the obtain familiar feat and then make the improved companion feat give +1 to a stat and a skill, or +1 size & level.

Arcane mark: Questions about if it's detectable, how detectable and/or visible, dispellable, how it interacts with the Umbra and characters that go in there, stuff like that.

Combat sense: Replacing dexterity with wisdom on dodges and level with wisdom on aimed attacks sounds neat. And it would be if you didn't get this at level 4 on classes that have dexterity as a class attribute and light or no armor.

Courtier's privilege: +1 to a background. Really good. Also tends to tie PCs more into the setting & story. Not a nameless, orphan, murder-hobo feat.

Daggerspell stance: Raises questions about the few spells that you are supposed to cast in melee. Good feat tho.

Druid's oath: Loose enough not to annoy players and it gives a bonus for acting in a certain way, not a penalty for acting another way. Well designed. Plus wraithbone power armor isn't metal.

Elemental shot: I'd like some clarity as to how it's supposed to stack, especially considering the class completion bonus of 'use more often'. And once a session is just annoying. So at the 3rd level of the class you've taken ES1 twice and have two extra uses. So can you use the feat 3 or 4 times a session and do you have to use both elements at least once? Thought: Option 1 = Change it to per day & 1+extra uses. Option 2 = Go with 1 use per feat +extra uses and don't care about which element gets used, but cut it down to a reaction instead of a half action just to be nice.

Expert tracker: Sure would help if there were any rules or examples for tracking. Also I'd explicitly make it any sort of tracking, because it currently implies the natural surroundings 'follow the footprints' sort of tracking.

Gun blessing: Seriously quite useful. The quality increase is a subtle but significant bonus for some weapons.

Improved animal companion: See animal companion.

Lead fingers: Leaves a lot up to the DM. Encourages PCs to shoot up the scenery. No mention of doing or not doing damage to the lever, switch, or button that you shoot. Wait a sec, this is just a regular 1 die stunt. Replace!

Lumen charge: Exchanges powering stuff for fatigue. What to do about promethians and others who are immune to fatigue? Change to resource points?

Mechadendtite use & mechanus implants: Not a fan. Exists solely to lock particular bionics behind certain class levels and doesn't really do anything else. You could make the mechadendrites require the mechanus implants and free up a feat. The implants themselves either need to have more explanation and do something beyond +1k1 vs. gasses or be an actual bionic implant, go ahead and make it mythic rare for a poor quality one if you want to restrict it a bit. The implants feat takes half a page and other than enabling mechadendrites and the vs. gasses thing I'm not sure what it should do.

Naturalize: I'd like duration info. Permanent? Session? Day? Scene? Rounds? Fine other than that.

Pinball Wizard: "and anything else the SM deems dramatically appropriate." Personally I like a little more than two extremely vague and bare-bones examples.

Redshirt shield: Hilarious. Love it.

Spell bullet: Just a little more info would be nice. I think this is supposed to be functionally replacing the spell range with the gun range in addition to the regular shooting bit. Unsure about self-only spells, bullet prep time (downtime? half action? just cast the spell?), illusions... I think you can have other people shoot it. Probably.

Spell shield: Just says 'one hand free'. I'd presume that you need to be conscious and capable of moving the hand. In fact I'd think that you would need to be continually making the shielding gestures. Just says 'one hand free'. Expect a rules lawyer argument at some point.

Steel rain: Rocking feat. Flat out negating dodge on full auto is strong.

Stunning fist: Weak. Change to using a resource point... Of course non-exalt npcs couldn't use it then. Also that save DC is lousy. I dunno. Needs fixing.

Zen shooting: Swap perception for ballistics skill with proficient weapons. Comes on a class that requires ballistics to level up. You'll have 3 or 4 ballistics when you get the feat already. Seriously, weapon focus would give you more. This is on the wrong class.

Racial feats: Something for everyone.
Ace pilot, kenku, +5 maneuverability to all spelljammers and vehicles you pilot. Pretty big bonus.
Ancestral recall, eldarin, +1k0 all magic tests and +10 all warp crap rolls. Slightly better at casting for a better chance of killing yourself. Although it is a die that you can drop if it rolls a 10.
Beneficial mutation, tiefling, +2 to your lowest attribute and -1 to any other. Technically lacking the 'minimum 1' language.
Developed wings, kenku, gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed. Hmm, they're hexapods basically but the hit location tables don't account for that. No mention of bionic wings either.
Elder wyrm fire, dragonborn, breath weapon does +1k1 damage.
Escape artist, halfling, immune to immobilization.
Explorer, gnome, you have a map to 'an exciting place' and you get a new map when you get there. Plot hook feat anyone?
K'garblepoop, kobold, gain the paranoia feat and other kobolds won't attack you until you attack them.
K'garblemorepoop, reduce the DC of wealth tests by 5 and increase location item rarity availability by 5. Potentially an issue as the wealth system works all right as it is. Unsure.
Legal miner, kobold, D&D dwarf stonecunning, reduce trap & stuff notice it DCs by 10.
Lightning bug, thri-kreen, you can glow your butt and you get the lumen blast feat.
Made of mettle, assimar, +1 to your lowest characteristic.
Mandibles, thri-kreen, gain a bite attack 1k1 rending, melee, toxic.
Matron, dryad, you're a treant. -1 dexterity and fellowship, +1 strength, -pheromones, +2 size, +2 natural armor (not stacking), +2k0 brawling damage.
Mixed heritage, human, at least one of your ancestors tried to breed with anything... and succeeded. Pick a race and you can take their racial feats.
Noisy cricket, thri-kreen, gain an athletics specialty in jumping and every raise (+5) counts as three (+15).
No one tougher, squat, replace dexterity with constitution for calculating static defense. Nice, really nice for daemonhosts and werewolves. Dump dexterity.
Photosynthetic, dryad, don't eat as long as you get 2+ hours of direct sunlight a day, also heal 1 HP per hour of direct sunlight, vampire dryads don't get this they just lose the sunlight weakness. Um, promethian dryads just get to be weird?
Precise technique, elf, 1/session use elven accuracy with any skill check.
Recluse, dark eldarin, immune to all poisons and toxic weapons, when using a toxic weapon 'roll damage form the toxic quality twice and take the better value'. Ok, except that toxic is a save vs. an extra wound. +5 to the save DC?
Silent arcana, tau, when casting spells increase the casting DC by 10 to replace the verbal, somatic, and material components of the spell with the subtle keyword. Recalling that subtle just means 'not during combat'.
Teacher, kenku, 1/session let anyone you can talk to use one of our skill specialties. Explicitly works over telecomm systems.
Trapmaster, kobold, gain specailites in craft & tech-use for traps. Possibly a trap if the DM doesn't play along with you building traps everywhere.
Treestrider, dryad, as a full action enter a large vegetable, exit anywhere within 1km/level, only need to know general direction and distance. No other limits or info.
Whagh, ork, when you gang up on an enemy allies in the gang up get +1k0 damage.

Whoof. Ok, next time the exalt feats. Already did the spells and gun katas. Then we're at the vehicle rules. I'll probably do the general usage and combat rules first, then another post for the vehicle building rules and maybe some comments about the vehicle weapons tables. There are exactly three example vehicles, I may bonus and throw down the generic civilian vehicles that I built for my exploding scenery purposes.

[Telok]

Exalt featy assety things.
Also I rechecked because I didn't fully remember, you can take the racial feats at any time for 100xp a pop. The assets are taken at character generation and you can only have one exalt asset unless you're a paragin.

For the dragonblooded there are 5, pick 1 or none at character generation.
Adamic dragon: replace your blood quickening/element ability with something more powerful from the following list. Metal, +1 willpower, +1 resilience, spend a resource point to get aura equal to your power stat for a round, and your claws are +4 penetration and gain the power field ability (pretty much like always having a power fist). Void, +1 composure, don't need to breathe, unaffected by hard vaccuum, wounds for your claws can't be healed by magic or spending resource points only time can heal them. Heart, +1 fellowship, spend a resource point to treat any one die rolled on a social attack or skill as a 10, your claws make those hit with them roll for warp crap (this could backfire).

Blood of bahamut: Your claws and your power stat 3 breath weapon do +1k1 damage and change to explosive type damage.

Blood of io: spend a full action gulping down a handful of precious metals and gems to regain 2 resource points.

Blood of tiamat: 1/day do an hour long ritual that changes your blood quickening/element ability. Well some recalculations will be annoying, but maximum flexability there.

Double dragon: pick a second blood quickening/element ability and get everything but the attribute boosts from it.

Interesting. Adamic is a straight up power boost, as is bahamut. Double is a lateral power increase instead of just adding stuff. Tiamat is for those who can't decide. Io is the only way for a dragonblooded to regain breath during combat and it's really only tempting because this exalt has so freaking few resource points.

I wonder what a maximum resilience character looks like. Power armor, metal adamic dragon, size, level, there's a bionic in this book that adds 1 (there are tradeoffs), the asset sturdy adds 1, level 4 stone dragon on earth or rock is +1, level 5 transmutation spell dragon form is +3 size but you lose at least one of the gear bonuses, level 5 healing spell divine power is +1, level 2 transmutation spell enlarge is +1 size. So dwarf size 4 or a size 5 race, probably using tech-priest to nab PA prof at level 1, metal adamic dragon, machinator array, sturdy, and power armor get us to L1=8, L2=9 (enlarge kicks in), L3=10 or 9 (dwarf gets 10, enlarge doesn't benefit the size 5 race here), L4=11(stone dragon kicks in), L5=13 or 12 (divine power kicked in but enlarge doesn't benefit the size 5 race here). So, dwarf dragonblooded(adamic:metal) with a machinator array and wearing power armor is 8,9,9,10,10 with enlarge adding +1 at level 3 & 5, stone dragon adding +1 at levels 4 & 5, divine power adding +1 at level 5. Probably tech-priest 1 / druid 5 before taking a class with access to stone dragon then. A size 5 race with enlarge is the same as a dwarf without enlarge. Yeah tough. You could trade dragonblooded exaltation for daemonhost which swaps 1 resilience for constitution + power stat additional stacking armor (not vs. silver & spells).

Wraith assets. They're a named "Children of <thing>" so I'll skip typing that again.
Ash: Spend two resource points to make someone roll on the shock table (in the insanity section).
Dust: Cast the Rot spell using power stat + intelligence.
Salt: Oh, interesting. Opponents in melee range of you have to declare their actions (I presume their turn of actions, not including reactions?) at the start of the round and can't change them. If the action becomes impossible or suicidal they can opt to take no actions on their turn. Like the old AD&D days but only for your enemies in melee. Harsh. Double harsh if you include reactions.
Silence: Spend a resource point to animate a recently killed corpse as a single minion, threat 1, damage 1. Limited to your power stat in minions at one time. Ah, pretty much suffers the same issue as the druid animal companion. At absolute best, 5th level, you have a 5 minion squad that rolls 5k1, has 5 static defense, and does 5+raises damage. That's really freaking sad. It's better to just give them the regular zombies, and those are so weak that's saying something.
Void: Spend a resource point and a half action (so what action cost are the others?) to have a target make a willpower save vs. DC 10 + 3x(your power stat) or only be able to take a single half action on their next turn. So that DC starts at a nice hard 25 and goes 40, 55, 70, 85 as you increase your power stat. Which it better be hard to resist because your basically trading half actions, using yours to negate theirs. Still undefined: range limit, line of effect requirement or not, reactions and free actions one their next turn (probably not?), can you tag someone across the umbra with this.

It feels like these are rather less well developed and probably completely untested. Ash and dust are ok, get a new effect in exchange for resource points or warp crap risk. Salt is quite interesting but melee combat is risky for wraiths due to resource recharge issues and their potential to be kicked out of the fight more easily than most. Silence is sad. Possibly fix that by having it be quality & damage equal to half the number of minions, round down initially to check the use of it since you can always change that to rounding up later. You could also have it be minion squads equal to the power stat, since it will still take 6 resource points to get a 6k1 squad of trash. Void just wants a little more definition in it's limits I think.

Next up is dogfighting jets, racing cars, and blowing stuff up with mecha. The vehicle rules.

Vehicles got stats. Could you have guessed?
Acceleration: normally you can change your momentumn by your acceleration once a round.

Momentum: from 0 to 10, you move speed * drive rating * momentum each round and get a bonus to static defense based on momentum and speed (1-5 add speed to static defense, 6-9 add double speed, 10+ add triple your speed).

Hit points, if it loses hit points it rolls on the critical chart, +1 to the roll for each lost HP past the first.

Maneuver: a bonus or penalty to all driving and piloting checks, also "lowered by your current momentum", affects static defense as well.

Size: HP and resilience are based on size, also a slight change to the size -> meters long/tall equivelency, 1-10 size = .5 to 5 meters (.5m per size), 11-20 size = 7 to 25 meters (+2m per size past 10), 21-30 = 35 to 125 meters (10m per size post 20). Anything bigger should be a spaceship. Personally I like the following better: 1-10 = .5m/size, 11-20 = previous + 2m/size, 21-30 = previous + 5m/size (30m-75m), 31-40 = previous + 10m/size (85m-175m). Because I've tried and could barely make a size 30 unarmed and pretty much unarmored shuttle that could get to orbit and back once before refueling and needing 10+ hours of hanger time. As a side note, it's not mentioned until the bit on building a vehicle but the size = HP = resilience (occasional modifiers may apply).

Speed: it's a rating, affects how far you move each round. Oddly references 'squares' as a distance. That's the only mention of mat/grid based movement that I've ever found.

Static defense: 10 + maneuver - (2x size) + speed bonus. With the note that at momentum 0 static defense is 0. I don't put a lower limit on it and go ahead and go negative. It doesn't really matter, somethings are so big that you can't miss them if you're actually trying to hit them.

Vehicles in combat.
Oh, I was mistaken. Well that's what careful re-readings get you. A second mention of squares as distance. Then a movement calculation example. Normal car (wheeled drive x5), speed 4, going all out at momentum 10, results in 160m per round and about 120kph. Yay math errors? Or are these 'squares' wonky? I get 4*5*10=200... 0.8m/square to get 160m from 200 squares of movement? Yeah, no, not doing that. Let's go straight to meters. 200m per round gets 2km a minute at 6 second rounds gets 120kph, just about 74.5mph. So, not a high end car there. In fact kind of weak sauce since an efficency tin can compact I had 15 years ago got to 90mph without any issue and could have easily gone higher if I'd pushed the engine a bit. Actually I suppose that just means that speed 4 is fairly underpowered for modern cars.

Drivers/pilots take actions, the first one really should be Maintain Control although it helpfully suggests being unconsious, putting out a fire, or eating a pie as reasons not to. Control checks are rolled using drive (2d moving and/or ground effect sort of vehicles) or pilot (3d moving vehicles and starships) plus the higher of intelligence or dexterity. Untrained drive/pilot is addressed elsewhere but I'll say it here, the maintain control action goes form taking a half action to taking a full action and uses the lesser of you intelligence or dexterity. That's a change from the default skill rules which would indicate a straight dexterity or intelligence roll at -1 die. Considering I've seen the dexterity 5 intelligence 1 characters try to drive things... Well it could make a difference. Use whichever way makes sense for the circumstances I guess.

This is long enough. We'll do the actual actions, crashing, ramming, and stuff next time.

Plus I was wrong, there are 4 example vehicles. The first one is just really easy to over look.

[Telok]

Building vehicles. Yeah, not going into ton of detail here because that would be a heck of a long post. Let's see what we can do in a reasonable chunk.

Stop 0: Budget (or concept).
You use 'vehicle points' to calculate a cost/wealth check for the vehicle. It starts at 50 vp for an uncommon wealth check, goes up in 50 point steps to 200 for a mythic rare vehicle, then 250 to 450 are holdings 1 to 5 backgrounds. In my use of the system regular civilian vehicles came to uncommon & a few rare, an AT-ST ended up in the rare range too I think, the AT-AT ended up being holdings 4. I'd have to go look at my spreadsheets (not available on my phone right now) to get the surface to orbit shuttle details.

Improving vehicles. If there's space in the vehicle after you bought it you can improve it later. <WARNING> Canny players may go for high wealth and a point or two of holdings to nab a powerful, if basic, vehicle with extra space in it with the intention of buying parts and upgrades.<WARNING> The wealth test to buy the part is DC 15+ 1/10th the VP of the part. That's cheap (you can get the best armor micronized down to one size slot for 160 vp or a 31 wealth check, or a 23 check for the 80 vp 2 slot version). Then it's about a day to install. There's nothing actually about replacing or upgrading parts, so at least that's at DM discretion. Honestly when someone mentions after-market parts for vehicles just give them a look and say "Don't be an ass.", that should weed out most of the trouble.

Step 1: Base stats.
Acceleration from 0 to 5, costs 0/5/10/25/50/100. If the vehicle has 0 acceleration you have to use Punch It to speed up or slow down.

Size, a biggie. Since size is HP & resilience & space for stuff it costs more as it goes up. 1-10 is 1x size, 11-20 is 2x, and 21-30 is 5x. So 60 vp just for a size 30 empty frame.

Speed is 1 to 15 with the cost and size varying by the acceleration. 1-10 speed costs 1x-10x acceleration of vp, with 1-5 taking no slots, 6-9 taking 1 slot, and 10 taking 2 slots. It cranks up from there to 4 slots and 40x acceleration of vp for 15 speed.

Maneuverability from -10 to +10, cost varies by size but has no slot requirements. They all cost vp of base 10+maneuverability with 1-10 having a 1x multiplier, 11-20 having a 2x, and 21-30 having a 5x.

Step 2: Install required components.
Choose your control system and drivetrain. You want a control system, really, even though it's technically optional. The vehicle needs more than just a 'start' button... Now I want a racing challenge involving sealing teams inside fast vehicles that don't have control systems. Naturally the race would be through an obstacle course.

Anyway, the drives. They're free. No cost, no slots. Just trade offs. Each one multiplies the speed rating for final movement distances.
Naval: wet drive, speed x3, crashes if it tries to leave the water, the vp cost for size is halved as long as this is the only drivetrain for the vehicle.
Tracked: speed x3, ignores the movement penalty for difficult terrain, can turn in place at zero momentum, and gets +4 HP.
Walker: leggy, speed x4, impassible terrain is treated as difficult terrain, if they tip over they can right themselves with a half action (as long as the didn't also blow up).
Wheeled: speed x5, no special abilities.
Hover: speed x5, not slowed by difficult terrain that it can hover above, can drive over water, but whenever it takes damage you have to make a control check with a DC of the damage roll or it goes out of control and rolls on the chart of the same name.
VTOL: speed x6 & flying, no special abilities other than the general flying & falling stuff.
Aerospace: needs to have wings, x10 & flying, if momentum falls below 3 it stalls and rolls on the out of control chart, also halve it's HP (yes, even if it has multiple different drives).
Scramjet: screamy speed x20 & flying, stalls and goes out of control if momentum is below 5, may not turn as part of the maintain control action (you have to use Punch It and roll dice to turn).
Runways - Aerospace and scramjets need runways, speed x100 and speed x250 meters in length, respectively. Attempts to land in difficult or impossible terrain or on a too short runway are treated as crashes.

And of course you can have multiple drives. There's a cost associated that gets detailed later. On switching the new drive takes over at the start of the next turn.

Armor, still part of the "base stats" bit but also sort of an accessory. Well, the standard crap armor is 1 slot and 5 vp for armor(2) up to 4 slots and cost 20 for armor(10). Skip it. There's hardened with higher cost for higher armor ratings (light at armor(5) to heavy at armor(20)), ferro-fibrous for the same cost as standard but taking more space and the same higher ratings as hardened, and hexagrammatic wards for aura (the heavy aura(20) is costly but mostly immune to magic).

Cargo space is a 1:1 ratio depending on size. 1 vp & 1 size for 0.5, 1, or 5 cubic meters based on the 10/20/30 size categories.

Passenger space is a doubling. Start at 2 vp & 2 size for 1 person and double the passengers for every additional 2 slots & 2 vp. Luxury passenger space is 5 slots and 10 vp per passenger, no doubling here.

Hidden compartment is actually an odd little add-on. You add it to any other component of the vehicle for 1 slot and 5 vp. That component is simply missing or looks like something else from external scans & inspections. Pretty nice way to run it though. You'll have to get on board to check for hidden bits.

Step 3: Accessories. The book doesn't actually say step 3, it just keeps on going through all the various bits and never gets to another step. But these are definitely all add-ons.
Afterburners, composite frame, ECM, ejector seats, environmental seals, "features" (misc. stuff not otherwise defined), jump jets, arms, orgone antenna, partial wing, reinforced frame, sensors, active camo, void shields, and weapon mounts. Generally what they say on the label. The orgone antenna allows you to cast spells on or out of the vehicle from inside, better versions add oomph to the spells. Partial wing offsets the momentum penalty to the maneuver stat. Camo is literally 'you can make stealth rolls pretty much anywhere'. Sensors are actually pretty powerful and long range, they autodetect stuff at 10km to 20km and give +5 to +10 for perception checks. Void shields flat out "nope" ranged weapons that have a penetration of less than the void shield rating or come form another vehicle that lacks a void shield of it's own. They come in 10, 15, and 20 versions and are pretty expensive. Weapon mounts are personnel for 1 slot & 5 vp, by weapon, and +5 vp for an omni mount that allows you to swap out weapons in a hour. Arms are 3 slots and 15 vp, they start at strength 6 and can go up to 10 for 1 slot & 5 vp per +1 strength.

Control systems. The basic cockpit is 4 slots & 5 vp, basic equipment (air conditioning, radios, seat belts, etc.) is another 3 vp and hilarious when the player figures out that they have to manually roll down a window of their mecha and shout to talk to the rest of the team, copilots are 2 slots & 15 vp each, alternate cockpit control setups are another 1 slot and 10 vp but change the control skill from drive/pilot to any of arcana, acrobatics, athletics, animal ken (the controls are made out of tribbles?), performer (yes, DDR, interprative mime dance, or guitar hero is apparently a legit control method), or tech-use.

There's a "mobile trace system" that lets you use sword school and gun kata moves with vehicle weapons. A 'Coffin' system for direct mind-to-machine control and variations there of. A remote control system is no slots and 5 vp, but they have to be added on to an existing control system, plus it's apparently a little clunky to use. There's a whole big 'build an AI to help or run it' chunk, where spending enough (a rather lot of) vp and slots can get you something better than a person piloting the vehicle. And the ever lovable 1 slot & 10 vp berserker system, when just everything needs to die at the hands of a murder-bot. Technically the berserker system only goes on when the pilot gets KOed... unless there isn't a pilot.

Reactors, engine add-ons. Overcharged lets you trade 25% of the vehicle's full HP for instantly going to momentum 10. Super solenoid engines add to speed, maneuver, and acceleration when turned on. They also cause rolls on the warp crap tables, with +# on the roll for higher rated engines. XL engines go from level 1 at 2 slots & 10 vp to level 5 at 10 slots and 50 vp, but they add directly to the vehicles speed rating at all times.

Modifications. Diver down is a no-cost upgrade that requires environmental seals but allows for underground or underwater travel. Living vehicles cost 4 slots and 5 vp but are technically alive and use the healing rules like PCs, possibly in addition to the repair rules. That's up to the DM. Open topped, no cost and you can shoot personal weapons out but people can shoot right in at you too. Variable drive is what lets you use multiple drivetrains, 2 slots and 10 vp per additional drive. The magnetic coupling option for 1 slot and 10 vp changes it from a half action to change drives down to a reaction to change drives. Macronized/miniaturized lets you alter components by doubling the cost for halving (round up) the slots, or halve the cost (round up) for doubling the slots. Somethings are really cost effective for that and somethings aren't, and you can crank it as far as you want in either direction (can't get lower than 1 on cost or slots though).

Flaws let you reduce the overall cost of the vehicle by 10 vp each. External power (beamed, electrified rails, extension cord), feedback (on damage pilot(s) check athletics + constitution vs. DC 15 or take fatigue), fragile (75% final HP), hanger queen (more downtime between uses, minimum 8 hours), inefficent control (needs an extra half or reaction each time you do Maintain Control), junker (roll twice and take the worse on the crit chart), overheats (loses 1 HP for Push It or momentum > 6), unstable (2x momentum penalty to maneuver).

Weapons... Ok, this is long enough. Weapons next time.

[Tvtyrant]

I just want to thank you for doing such a thorough breakdown of the game. It is nice to get a really in depth perspective.

[aimlessPolymath]

Do you have tips on how to design fights? I've looked at running the system, but I have trouble working out what a reasonable challenge looks like for the the party as they start out (or even later).

[Telok]

I just want to thank you for doing such a thorough breakdown of the game. It is nice to get a really in depth perspective.

Thanks. It's always nice to know that I'm not just muttering to myself in here.


Do you have tips on how to design fights? I've looked at running the system, but I have trouble working out what a reasonable challenge looks like for the the party as they start out (or even later).

Well lets see. The very first fight we ever did with the system was about 6 minion squads and a gang lord npc I cobbled together. I use a spreadsheet for easy column & row formatting of stuff, not sure how well it'll translate to here.
Started on a beach at about 200m with a surprise called shot to the head with a frag missile from hiding. Shooting & running. Ended with three PCs ganging up on the leader in melee and ending him with a chain axe head crit that threw the head 2d10 meters and covered everyone in blood. A few people had less than half HP but none of the PCs had any crits.

Misc gangers, threat 2. → Def 10, atk (gangers)k2, damage 10 + (5/r)

Gang Lord: All stats @ 3

Acrobatics 3, Athletics 2, Ballistics 2,
Common Lore 3, Deceive 2,
Perception 3, Scrutiny 2, Weaponry 4
Speed 6
Size/Resilience 4/5
Static Defense 23
HP 6
Armor 4 (all)
Feats
Blademaster – 1/r free reroll melee attk
Blind Fighting, Defensive Mobility - +5 def v OppAtt
Swift Attack – spend reaction to make extra melee attk
Step Aside – 1/r free dodge
Wall of Steel – 1/r free parry
Attacks
rocket, 4k2 x, pen 5, blast 6, 200m
sword, 5k2 r + shock, +1k0 parry
Shoot = 5k2
Dodge = 6k3
Gear
Mesh Overcoat, silk suit. Missile launcher, 2 frag missiles. Officer's sword.
Missile Launcher,200m, clip 1, Full reload, Rare
Frag Missile, dmg 4k2 X, pen 5, UnCom, Blast (6m)
Officer's Cutlass, 2k2 R, pen 0, Rare, Balanced +1k0 parry & Shocking con v 15 → 1r stun


Remember, none of us has run this before except that I'd already written my dice roll calculator and found a dice roller app that would do the basic XkY rolls (I had to enter formulas for all the die combos I needed, that was annoying, I didn't put absolutely everything in, it wouldn't reroll 1s). So these were truly novice type characters, one guy took high dexterity using the D&D assumption that dexterity was a ranged attack stat.

Second fight I was trying out the vehicle rules. They were on a boat, expecting to try for a fish about half the length of the boat. They got a fish slightly longer than the boat. Literally I grabbed a metal (hollow) fish sculpture about 20" long and worked out sizes & battle mat area from there.

It went pretty well. One rook was pretty trashed another was half trashed, the PCs worked together to keep Ikky grappled, someone's machine gun jammed, one guy had a mecha that took a decent hit, Ikky almost broke three grapples in a single round with a stunt and made them all nervous, they eventually got enough fatigue from crits and tranq juice to KO it. Took about six rounds of combat. Ikky ran out of resource points during round 5.

Tensquare – 185m x 185m raft
HP 30, resilience 30, defense -55, acceleration 1, speed 3, naval drive 3, maneuver -5, size 30
8 crew, 8 passengers, 4 weeks supplies, basic controls, radio, advanced sonar, quonset huts
Open topped (huts are sheet metal, cover AP 6). 2 meter high 'rim' with a door every 20 meters
Overheats → 1 HP damage per round at momentum > 6
Inefficient controls → requires an additional ½ or reaction to control

Shack & huts generally in the middle, shack can move on an embedded rail grid. One rook at each corner of the ship. Main shi

The Shack – 13m x 8m x 8m mobile tower w/ fishing gear
HP 18, resilience 15, defense -13, acceleration 2, speed 3, tracked drive 3, maneuver -8, size 15
1 crew, 1 passenger (standing), 2km cable reel, line launcher, basic controls, local radio
Magnetic couplers (stabilize & lock down), external power, unstable, 2 m^3 tranq tanks (12)
Manipulator arm: strength 6, 7k2+10 damage, 0 penetration, length 20m
Hook line & sinker: strength 6, 3k3 damage (once then grapple), 5 penetration, tranq injector

Rooks – 10m x6m x6m fish wrangling towers
HP 15, resilience 15, defense -30, immobile, basic controls
1 crew, 1 passenger (standing), external power, remote control (Tensquare control room)
Long manipulator arm: strength 6, 7k2+10 damage, 0 penetration, reach (60m)
Harpoon gun: strength 4, 3k2 damage, penetration 5, range 100m, 3 round rewind (reaction start)
Machine gun: 3k2 damage, 5 penetration, full-auto only x10, clip 10, range 150m, reload – full

Ikky
Str 7, might tail slap
Dex 4, quick turns
Con 6, indefatigable
Cha 3
Fel 1
Cmp 2
Int 1
Wis 4, keen hearing
Wil 5, fearless
Brawl 4, bitey
Stealth 4, from the depths
Perception 2
HP 38
Resilience 13
Defense -6, mental def. 15
Size 20
Speed 11, 22 swim
Armor 5
-10 all damage but magic & silver
1 per round free dodge
Resource 16, 4/round, Regain 1/wound by biting
Fear 1 & again on all-out attacks
No critical effects but death
never outnumbered
Dodge – roll Dex & ½ add to defense (reaction)
Multiattack – spend reaction to tail & bite
Tail slap 7k3 & unarmed
Bite 8k4, pen 3
All out attack → full round attk @ +2k0 but no reactions until next turn
Bull rush → melee ½ action, opposed str & move 2m + 2m/raise
Run → full action provokes 6x speed, ranged attacks v move @ -2k0, melee +2k0
Grapple: ½ action Brawl to start grapple. Full action Brawl to maintain & take one option:
* Attack w/ weapon: Roll dmg, unarmed or wpn as normal, not 2-handed
* Throw Down: Prone grapplee
* Push: As bull rush, pusher chooses to move or not
* Stand: One or both parties
* Ready: Ready own equip or may grab opponent item
* Use Item: Use readied item
As grapplee: ½ action grapple attempt then take one option:
* Break Free: Opposed strength, on success may take another ½ action.
* Slip Free: Dexterity v. 15 & on success take another ½ action.
* Take Control: On success become grappler & take any grapple option.


Then we tried spaceship combat, they did a boarding action that we ended up running. That was when I started using modified historic WWII battleship deckplans for spaceships. They were attacked by gnomish marine biologist space raiders. They killed most of the ship crew during the normal space combat so I needed to populate the ship with something. First combat was a in a large mess hall against a light recon tank and a bunch of zombie minion squads.

The tank was open topped and had active camo. Amazingly the PCs all screwed their perception rolls so it got a surprise round. Soon 2 PCs jumped in (open topped) and blasted the crew. I think there were 4 zombie squads, one got a really high roll and did like 6 wounds to someone in heavy armor. But they really enjoyed mowing through three & four zombies per attack.

gnome zombie squad
Threat 3 Def 15 atk [5]k3 melee biting Dmg 15 R +1/raise

TANK
cost 148 very rare, wealth test 25
Defense -10 + speed bonus Moves 15*momentum meters, may turn in place @ Mom 0
.at Mom 1-5, 1x Speed subtract momentum from maneuver for tests
.at Mom 6-9, 2x Speed 5m long open topped scouting tank, ignores merely difficult terrain
.at Mom 10+, 3x Speed radar, thermo-vision, optical camo (you have to duck)
HP: 7 Resilience: 10, Armor 10
multilas 5k2+10, pen 5, single/auto 4, 120m, reliable
machinegun 3k2, pen 5, auto 10, 120m, ammo 100
Take 3 hp dmg to zoom to 10 momentum as ½ act
It loses 1 HP every round in which its Momentum is above 6 or the driver uses the Push It action.


About half way through the ship I dropped the swordmaster on them, he killed the lights and started stabbing away. As soon as he was wounded he switched to defensive fighting. I took them like 8 rounds to off a level 3 fight guy. No serious damage though, he spread attacks around for about 2 wounds to every PC.

halfling swordmaster (L3 fight guy), Stats: phys 4, ment 3, soci 2
Size 2, speed 8, BLINDFIGHTING, NEVER SURPRISED
Def: 30 Ac:4, Resil: 4, Hp: 12, Melee 4 (+3), brawl 1, ballistics 2, athletics 3
Counter attack: On success parry riposte @ -2k0, mesh armors 4, (not legs)
Fight Defensive: -1k0 attack, +1k0 parry & dodge, fencing sword 2k2, +1k0 parry
Wall of steel: 1 free parry / round , weapon focus: +2k0 attack w/ fencing, maneuver+6 pen
Fight def = 8k4 melee, 5k2 dmg, 6 pen, 2/round parry @ 10k4 div2, add to def & riposte @ 6k4


Then they finally faced the captain in his quarters. A gnome vampire necromancer, and few regular (non-minion) zombies, and the cyber-yeti bodyguard hopped up on combat drugs.

This finally ran pretty much everyone out of resource points and wounds. Left a ork in power armor and a warform werewolf in crit 4 territory with broken ribs & fatigue galore (they fought the bodyguard). The vamp burned resource to do 5 actions a round a couple times spell-move-aim-sword-grenade. They initially ignored the little guy with a silly big sword, by the end they seriously respected him. The zombies were barely speed bumps.

Walking dead – stats: Str 3, else 2 or null, skills: Brawl 2, Perception 2
Speed 5, resil 4, hp 4, atk 3k2 → 3k1 R, Undead & mindless

cyber yeti (L2 thing), stats: str 6, dex 3, con 5, else 2
Size 8, speed 9
Def: 9, Ac: 9, Resil: 6, Hp: 12
Arms +1k0 str tests, giz – fleet of foot, legs +2k0 jumps, full life support, +2k0 vs. blind/deaf/pain
injector rig – ignore crit effects less than death, Flak armor 5, all, AC 10 vs blast/explode
Powerfist – 8k5, 10k4 impact, pen 4, power field (on parry 4+ to break opp, not v natural, artifact, pow)
If all-out-atk (full rnd, +2k0, no reactions) wounds, repeat attack once.

gnome vampire necromancer, stats: phys 2, ment 4, soci 3
Size 3, speed 4, CANNOT DIE UNLESS X, E, SILVER, MAGIC DMG. SEE IN DARK
blood power 3, resource vitae: 15 (3/round), 1 resource = 1 more ½ action
Def: 18, Ac:9, Resil: 4, Hp:12/15, NO STUN, NO BLEED
+5 to test result for spell effect & resist 1/scene reroll any necro spell & reroll any fail Drain Touch
Forsee: reaction TN 15, 6k4 as 'parry', Animate dead: full act TN 25, 8k4 => walking dead
Command: ½ act TN 15, 5k4 vs Arcana+Will save, one word → force next round action
Drain Touch (may reroll): ½ act TN 20, 8k4 & touch (brawl 5k2) dmg 2k2 magic & get vitae = wounds
Torment: ½ act TN 25, 8k4 vs Arcana+Con save or lose ½ remain hp, range 10m (caster too, 8k4+5)
Defenestrate: full act TN 20, 6k4 & targ w/in 5m of wall, thrown, vict & wall 4k2 impact, AP < 15 break
False Life: ½ act TN 15, 8k4 → 1 temp HP + 1 per 2 raise (25,35,45…)
Bite: 5k2, 3k1 R, 0 pen, regain 1 vitae, Grand Diaklaive: 5k2, 6k3 R, 2 pen, no parrying
Best quality plate armor – AC9, max Dex 3, all, 2x krak grenades, 4k2, 4k3 X, pen 10, 6m rng


Four or five first level PCs handled all of that. Not all in one day, but about over a week and a half covering 2 sessions. They had no magic healing at that point and were 3 paragons, a werewolf, atlantean (only showed up for the first two fights before flaking out), and a chosen (weird build, shield, mace, light armor, low dexterity & strength, healing 1 (boon), no ranged skill, I think it may have supposed to be a D&D style cleric? rerolled after these fights into a gnome vamp necro character).

By the time people were late-high 3rd level I was comfortable throwing 32 monodrones, 8 duodrones, and 2 tridrones at them and considering it a middle-low difficulty fight. A chaos marine and eight combat servitors were a decent middle-to-upper-middle difficulty fight at second level. At 2nd level they also faced a mind flayer, aboleth, and 16 green soldiers fighting on catwalks above huge algae vats with pipes all over the place (the aboleth escaped with wounds). I threw about 40d12 worth of gibbering threat & damage 4 minions at them once, that was a fairly threatening fight. A greater daemon with conjuration 3 or 4 (mostly blink, teleport & jaunt) and the level 4 daemonhost abilities added was a very serious threat to two PCs (a couple people missed game that day) with both sides retreating badly wounded.

[Telok]

Vehicle weapons, they're typed like the main weapon tables in the first book (ordinary, las, syrneth, bolter, etc.) so we'll start at the top with the ordinary ones. Autocannons, big gunz! They're, um, vehicle size guns. AC2, AC5, AC10, AC15, AC20, just like BattleTech. From 2 slots & 10 vp up to 8 slots & 25 vp, damage from 3k1+10 to 6k4+10, all penetration 5, ranges drop from 250m base for the AC5 to 50m base for the AC20.

Something to note is that ammo for vehicle weapons is never discussed anywhere. So kinda, sorta, you assume that they have infinite ammo? But that gets weird as some guns and missiles have optional ammo types and that for 50vp you can mount the biggest missile launcher in a civilian truck like a Ford F-150 or something. Another note is that while all the vehicle weapons have the same categories as the regular weapons, the proficiencies to use them are never addressed. I presume that the proficiencies carry over and that jams happen for vehicle weapons like they happen for personal weapons. There is also no option for higher or lower quality vehicle weapons like there is with personal weapons.

Back to the autocannons, you can pay another slot or two and a few more vp for special ammo. LBX halves the range and gives you the scatter weapon quality (at point blank 2 raises to hit adds +1k0 damage & double armor at long+ range, terrible). HV doubles the base range. Ultra ammo changes the guns from single shot to -/2, like double barreled, which means they always fire full-auto at +2k1 to hit and can get +1k0 damage if they hit by a raise. Considering how lackluster and expensive the autocannon stuff is you could let all the ammo boosts stack and it still wouldn't be all that good.

Gattling cannons are sort of like SMG versions of hte sutocannons. Light & heacy, 3k2+10 & 4k3+10 damage, no penetration, RoF -/10 & -/8, range 100m & 80m, cost about like AC5s and AC10s.

Railguns are where it's at for the ordinary weapons though. Light, heavy, HAG. Light & heavy are 4k3+10 & 5k4+10 damage, 10 penetration, base range 500m & 300m, single shots, 5 slots & 20 vp or 10 slots & 30 vp. A bit expensive but the light is reliable and accurate while the heavy is just accurate, that's an extra +1k0 when aiming and +1k1 damage for every 2 raises on the hit. A good aimed shot will hammer a low static defense vehicle. The HAG has most of the stats of the light railgun, the cost of the heavy rail gun, and only a 50m base range. It trades accurate for scatter and I just can't justify using it in any way.

Under las weapons there's the multilas, blazer, and bombast. Multilas is 5k2+10 damage, penetration 5, RoF S/4, base range 120m, reliable, 2 slots and 5 vp. The budget conscious energy gun. The blazer is the multilas with +1k0 damage, single shot only, 100m base range, and doubles the cost. In exchange it gets the twin linked quality, one of the new weapon qualities from the end section of this book. Twin linked is +1k0 to hit for single shost and +2k0 damage if you get two raises on the hit roll. Not horrid but I question the doubles cost since the multilas can autofire for +2k1 to hit and get a maximum of 9k2+10 damage compared to 7k2+10. The bombast is the blazer with a few changes, 4k3+10 damage, costs 5 slots and 12 vp, and loses the twin linked property. Dig into the details to find that it has two firing modes, standard as listed and a sort of overcharged mode that adds the recharge property (fire every other round) in exchange for upping the damage to 6k4+10.

Compare an AC20 with ultra ammo for the same damage & range for 9 slots & 30 vp against two bombasts for 10 slots & 24 vp. You can mini one of the bombasts to get to 8 slots & 36 vp. Miniaturize everything to drop the AC20 to 5 slots & 55 vp, the 2x bombasts to 6 slots & 48 vp. Having 2 bombasts means a single critical hit can't take out what's probably your biggest gun on the vehicle.

One plasma weapon, the plasma destroyer. 5k4+10, penetration 15, single shot, 120m, 5 slots & 20 vp, recharge & overheats. Tempting buy you aren't taking it (wait until the exotics). Remember overheats means you take the weapon damage if you roll a 9 on your damage dice, and mounted weapons can't be free action dropped.

One melta weapon, multi-melta. Like the plasma destroyer but one less kept damage die, 50m range, 5 vp cheaper, no properties. 40% range, -4 damage (37 -> 33), cheaper, shoots every round, won't wreck the vehicle.

Two bolt weapons, vulcan mega bolter and hurricane bolter. VMB is 6k2+10, penetration 10, -/6 rof, 150m, 5 slots, 15 vp, tearing. Hurricane is 4k1+10, penetration 5, -/10 rof, 100m, slots 6, 12 vp, tearing & storm (another new one, get +2k0 per hit raise). So the VMB throws a max of 10k3+10 on a def+30 hit, and the hurricane throws (24 -> 14/2=7 ->) 10k8+10 on a def+50 hit (a def+30 hit is 10k4+10). The hurricane is better if you can tag +25 over static defense (the -5 pen keeps the break point above +20 over unless you shot very light armor).

Well that's half the list. Do the rest next time.

[Cluedrew]

Druid's oath: Loose enough not to annoy players and it gives a bonus for acting in a certain way, not a penalty for acting another way. Well designed. Plus wraithbone power armor isn't metal.That last sentence. That feels like it encompasses so much of the feel of this system.

[Telok]

Holy criminy! I skipped a section. Had it all written up and missed posting it. I'm amazed nobody noticed. Shame on you guys!

************************************************** ******

How do you control this thing?!?! More vehicle stuff.

The standard thing to do is the half action Maintain Control. Choose one of: accelerate or decelerate by the vehicle acceleration rating, minimum 0, maximum 10, ground vehicles and mecha can go backwards at half speed. Turn 90 degrees if your maneuver is a 0 or higher (momentum is a penalty to maneuver). If you don't do a maintain control and the vehicle isn't at a dead stop you roll on the out of control table. Maintaining control doesn't require a control test, so the untrained don't have to worry too much about their normal drive to work every day. I presume that drugs and alcohol force checks.

Out of control: 1-4 continue in a straight line. 5-7 swerve randomly (hmm, should aircraft swerve down sometimes?). 8-9 swerve plus change momentum, randomly determine +/- and adjust momentum by the acceleration rating. 10 turn over, also "find a way to submit to the harsh mistress of gravity" for those who are airborne, lose HP equal to momentum, flip over, and momentum is reduced to zero.

Crashing is the same as rolling a 10 on the out of control chart.

The Punch It action is pushing the vehicle to do something extra, it's a half action. Choose from: 1) Speed up, DC 5+(2x momentum), you increase the momentum by 1, if that takes you over 10 the extra is lost at the end of your turn. 2) Turning, this allows you to use the maintain control action to speed up or slow down and still turn at the same time. Uses the same DC but modified by the maneuver rating, which in turn is modified by the momentum. So, DC 5+(2x momentum) + maneuver - momentum. Any way, do a 90 degree turn. I suppose that means you can u-turn or bootlegger reverse by using maintain control to turn and punch it to turn again.

Fire Mounted Weapon, half action. You shoot, or use a vehicle melee weapon if you happen to have one. You use the usual rolls but feats and miscellaneous bonuses (presumably class completion stuff mostly) don't apply. You can fire a mounted weapon on full-auto as a half action but then you can't do evasive maneuvers until next turn.

Evasive maneuvers, reaction. Works pretty much like normal dodging. Momentum must be at least 1 (stationary buses don't get to dodge) and you lose a momentum at the end. Standard control test roll+maneuver-momentum, apply half of the result to the vehicle's static defense.

Ramming... It's a free action. Ok. When a vehicle hits something they both take XkY damage. X is half size (max 10) and Y is 1/3 momentum. So by the book we're looking at a 125 meter scramjet shuttle with an oversize engine screaming along at escape velocity (it has to hit something like momentum 13 or 15 or something, on top of the speed rating) doing 10k4 damage. Then, assuming everything is still working and the pilot is still conscious, roll drive/pilot plus your choice of constitution or composure against a DC equal to the damage roll. Success is -2 momentum, failure is -2 momentum and an out of control roll, not even getting to roll is just an out of control roll. Weak. Pathetic. Sad. I have some house rules written down somewhere, I'll dig them up later.

Difficult terrain, go half speed. If... if the current acceleration is more than 5 make a control test? Ok, I think that's supposed to be momentum. If current momentum is more than 5 make the usual control text at DC normal, or 5+(2x momentum). Failure goes out of control. Really difficult terrain might have a lower momentum threshold to start rolling or a higher DC.

Impossible terrain, go in and you crash.

Flying, if a flying vehicle loses HP or goes out of control it starts to fall. By round it falls 10m, 20m, 50m, 100m, and 100m is apparently terminal velocity as far as we care. If you hit something like the ground treat it as a ramming attack at 10x momentum. Pulling out of the fall is a maintain control action and a DC 15 control check.

Optional extra chase and dogfighting rules. For when the vehicles are roughly evenly matched.... Ok, it's a 'Chase' maneuver, takes a half action. Replaces the usual maintain control action, has the same effects plus... you can try a trick. Choose your DC and roll a standard control check, the opponents get rolls to counter it as the same DC, anyone who fails goes out of control. Ok, that's interesting, set your own DCs is a good way to try to get PCs to stunt with this because stunting gets you extra dice. Lets see the tricks.
Drift, move any direction without changing facing.
Handbrake turn, at the end of your turn end up facing any direction that you want.
Vault the curb, ignore impossible terrain for one round.
Slip by, move through occupied spaces without hitting anything for the rest of the turn.
Barrel roll, +5 static defense until the start of your next turn.
Puchilev's cobra (wha?), immediately lose up to 5 momentum and areospace vehicles don't stall from this if they go below minimum flight speed (apparently scramjets will still stall out on this).

Oh, Puchilev's cobra is a real maneuver. Interesting, there are youtube videos of it. Well that's a nice set of moves and it still leaves you a half action to blast someone. I think I'd let people try these any time but with a static DC maybe? 10+(3x momentum)? Perhaps add a 'not in a chase' option to the tricks with varying DCs and possibly varying results based on raises/checks.

Vehicles on their backs, flipping them upright is a straight strength check against DC 2x size, multiple people may want to combine strengths to do it. Flipped over flying vehicles take a half action control check against DC of the vehicle's size, unless they're already on the ground.

Untrained piloting and driving, covered that earlier. Use the worse of dexterity or intelligence and maintain control is a full action.

Taking damage. Well we get a contradiction. This says that if a vehicle takes a single point of damage its a glancing blow that doesn't roll on the crit chart. Earlier it said any damage. Two or more points of damage is a penetrating blow and rolls on the crit chart. Nothing about adding to the roll for more damage. I think maybe we should go with this version, just because the crit chart tops out at 10 and tearing weapons are a thing.

Repairing damage. Takes 1 person hours equal to vehicle size to repair one HP. Doubling the people reduces the vehicle size for this by 1, to a minimum of half size. Or 1 HP repaired in size hours by one person and -1 hour per doubling of the repair crew to a minimum of half the time. Damaged weapons and systems are counted as 1 HP per 'slot'. Vehicles have slots equal to size, so each system basically has a 'size' equal to it's slots. Nothing about needing any particular skills or tools to do repairs. I guess you'll just have to try for common sense or ask a mechanic (I ask, one of my group is an auto mechanic, makes it easy).

The vehicle crit chart.
1 - ruined the paint job.
2 - reduce momentum by 1.
3 - pilot shaken, only a half action next turn. Bad if you're untrained.
4 - roll on the out of control table.
5 - drive hit, lose 3 current momentum and maximum momentum is reduced by 1 until repairs are made.
6 - pilot hit, lose 1k1 HP. Ouch, that's not 1d10, it's 1k1.
7 - a random system (but not the control system) is wrecked and useless until repaired.
8 - crash.
9 - cockpit hit, lose environmental seals & pilot loses 3k1 HP.
10 - roll twice, rerolling 10s.

So far it's feeling like it needs another editing pass and maybe some playtesting. I'd put in a few notes about higher and lower gravity, maybe atmosphere density too, for the flying bits. Definitely need better ramming rules, they don't even consider people trying to dodge or stunt stop the vehicle (PCs can temporarily get to size 8+ and have power fists). Plus there's a question of precisely when things move, it did actually come up when we were playing and really trying out the vehicle rules for the first time. On the pilot's initiative I presume, but three or four words to clarify would be nice because it matters if it's beginning/middle/end of turn and/or on particular maneuvers. There's also the issue that control tests/checks sort of say that +maneuver-momentum is baked into the check, but then there's this inconsistent wording applying maneuver as a bonus sometimes but not always.

Next is the vehicle building rules. But I'll throw in two of the example vehicles first.

Basic ground vehicle: Acceleration 2, speed 5, size 8, maneuver 0, wheeled drive, cockpit, 1 passenger, 2 cubic meters of cargo, basic amenities, cost 50.

Translation: Size 8 (4m long), HP 8, resilience 8, static defense per momentum level 0(-6)/0(-1)/4/9, uncommon wealth check to buy, wheels are x5 so goes 25m per momentum each round, has stuff like air conditioning radio seat belts power windows.

Scorpion tank: acceleration 2, speed 5, size 12, maneuver -7, tracked drive, cockpit, copilot, medium hardened armor, ac/5, personnel weapon mount, flaw: overheating, cost 100.

Translation: Size 12 (9m long), HP 16, armor 10, resilience 12, static defense per momentum level 0(-31)/0(-26)/0(-21)/0(-16), rare wealth check to buy (it's a really light tank), pilot and copilot can both make any rolls, tracks are x3 (plus ignore the speed reduction of difficult terrain and can turn in place at momentum 0 and +4 HP) so goes 15m per momentum per round, overheating: takes 1 HP damage every turn it goes over momentum 6 or the driver uses a Push It maneuver, totally lacks stuff like air conditioning radios seat belts power windows. Mounts one personal weapon with no restrictions so an MP las cannon, a bola, one grenade, or a power fist are all OK. You may ROFL now. Also the ac/5 stats as: damage 3k1+10, penetration 5, single shot, 250m base range, size 2, cost 10. I don't think any space or cost was reserved for any special autocannon ammo so that's the basic slug. I will note that 3k1 comes out to a 27% change of 10+ on the chart I have (every time I've checked the roller I made it matches the chart to within less than 1%).

[Telok]

Ok, back on course now.

Two syrneth weapons. The wave motion cannon, noted in the description that it's one of the only vehicle weapons that can damage a starship. 6k3+30, 20 penetration, single shot, 500m base range, 10 slots & 30 vp, has the recharge property. Then the D-cannon, 4k2+10, penetration 20, RoF S/3, range 40m, 3 slots & 20 vp, nothing else. So, that "basic ground vehicle" back there? Ditch the 4x 0.5 cu.m. of cargo space and the passenger, add a single flaw, and you can cram in a micronized wave motion gun with the hidden compartment option on it. That kicks the vp cost from 50 to (50-6-10+5+60=99) 99 and just moves us into the rare wealth test. From some scanning of the DtD40k7e dedicated forum (there is one, rule 34b: ", and a forum too") "BFG on a cart" is a known issue with these rules.

Exotic weapons are the PPC and mega particle cannon. PPC is 6k3+10, 10 penetration, single shot, 200m range, 4 slots & 15 vp, and carries the shocking property. An efficient heavy hitter, compares as flat out better than the AC/10 (slightly better damage, penetration, range, ans slots) although I have no idea how you'd apply shocking to a vehicle. The MPC is 6k2+30, penetration 20, single shot, 250m range, 8 slots & 20 vp, has the recharge property. It's a budget wave motion cannon.

The only flame weapon is the inferno cannon, 6k2+10, no penetration, single ****, 40m range, 2 slots & 5 vp, flame property. So it autohits a 40m long, 30 degree wide cone, with a dexterity save to dodge based on the shooter's dexterity. Again, I'm not quite sure how well this translates from the personal scale weapons to the vehicle weapons because of the dexterity save and catching fire.

Primitive weapons get a call out here too, ballista and catapult. Stick them on your Mad Max post-apoc planet or, as I did, on the bus sized zombie insects used as troop transports on Athas. Catapult, then ballista: 4k2+10 & 3k2+10, no penetration, single shots, 50m & 100m, slots 5 & vp 5 for both, no specials. Yeah, there's no 'indirect' or anything on the catapult and it's short range plus fast reload is a bit puzzling.

Missile launchers, three types from BattleTech, special ammo for each. Again no indication of how to handle ammo concerns. In addition we've got the "homing" weapon special property that isn't covered anywhere, one of the more problematic errors in the book. LRM, long range missiles, can't be shot at targets in the short (half base) range. 3k2+10, 5 penetration, RoF -/5 (full auto fire only), 500m range, 3 slots & 10 vp, homing (undefined). Two special ammos for a slot & 5 vp each, inferno adds "burning" (not an actual weapon property) and swarm changes them to a single shot blast[5] attack that will hit a 10m diameter area. SRMs do 4k2+10, penetration 5, RoF -/5, 100m range, 2 slots & 5 vp, homing again. The two special ammos for this one are inferno (again, same) and tandem charge warheads that "have all their Glancing Blows upgraded to Penetrating hits", meaning that all hits causing wounds call for rolls on the vehicle critical charts. The Arrow IV launcher is rocket artillery, and called out ad the only missile system that can even threaten to damage a starship at all. 6k1+30 (most of the spread is concentrated in the 39-46 damage range), penetration 10, single shot, 500m range, 10 slots & 25 vp,no specials. Two ammo types for it are cluster (blast 15m radius) and homing (still lacking any data) for 2 slots & 10 vp each.

Yeah, the missile systems raise questions about how the ammo thing is supposed to work.

Vehicle close quarter combat weapons are defined a 1k2+10, no penetration, no range, 2 slots & 10 vp. Then down in the descriptions you get the spread of options that make them interesting. No, ah, requirement for the vehicle having arms is mentioned and nothing about what the vehicle strength should be if there aren't arms. Basically ramming prows and such are distinctly "I dunno". Categories: ordinary is +1k1 damage, parrying is +5 penetration (wut?), cavalry gets reach (distance unknown), flail gets flexible, fencing gets balanced, two handed gets +0k2 damage and unweildly (no using it to parry), syrneth is +2k0 damage, chain gets tearing, a shield gets defensive (issue with the +2 armor to the limb), and unarmed gets +1k0 damage plus 2 penetration.

So obviously the melee combat system for vehicles is supposed to mirror personal scale melee, and it should work fairly well although there are some questions involved about things like parrying mecha weapons with a knife. Most of the other weapons are OK, they just mostly want another editing pass any perhaps some balancing or play-testing. The ammo questions and missing weapon properties are an issue as well. There's also a question of if static defense should go negative or not. It makes a difference when full auto and accurate weapons. This is definitely a beta-test system.

Here's the rest of the sample vehicles from the books.

Bio-Titan: Accel 3, Speed 9, Size 24, Maneuver 0
Walker Drive, Ejector Seat, Environmental Seals, Manipulator Arms, Void Shield 10, Cockpit, Coffin, Remote Uplink System, Berserker System, S2 Engine 1, Living Vehicle, Vehicle CQC Weapon (Parrying) [Omni Mount], L. Punisher Gatling Cannon [Omni Mount], Light Hardened Armor, Composite Frame, Basic Equipment, Flawed: External Power, Feedback, Hangar Queen, Total: 350.

I have no idea how that thing is supposed to work. External power supply, if it's beamed then it has to maintain LoS to the generator at all times, it has 1d10 half actions available for as long as it's cut off. It's worse if it uses a cable power supply. Composite frame reduces HP by 3 in exchange for +3 maneuver, OK but the light hardened armor is only 5 points and the void shield only stops ranged attacks with a penetration of 9 or less. With a static defense of 0-48+0=0 at best... Say someone shoots at 6k3 with a vulcan mega bolter... well penetration 10 so it ignores all the defenses, we can assume about 6 raises for 10k3+10 damage or roughly a 24% chance of 2 wounds per attack. A railgun is normally about 5 raises, 40% chance of 60+ raises, has about a 33% chance of 2 wounds. Almost the entirety of it's "defense" is the resilience based on size.

Air Superiority Jet: Size 17, Accel 3, Speed 11, Maneuver +5
Aerospace Drive, Cockpit, Copilot, Afterburners, Partial Wing 4, Sensor System, LRM [Omni Mount], Environmental Seals, Composite Frame, Flawed: Hangar Queen, Total: 200. Straight up fighter jet. Replace the LRM & omni point with the same and cost size D-Cannon and you can work through that bio-titan. Static defense though, you'll only have 5 @ momentum 6-9 and 16 at momentum 10. Naturally you're hoping it sticks around in range to be shot at, momentum 10 puts it at 1100m moved every round and the pilot dodges at a grand total of -1 to the roll. For an additional 30 vp you could stick a micronized railgun on it and off the bio-titan from beyond it's retaliation range. It only has 9 HP though.

Variable Man-Machine: Size 17, Accel 3, Speed 11, Maneuver +5
Aerospace Drive, Cockpit, Variable (walker) [Magnetic Couplers], Manipulator Arms, Sensor System, SRM, Environmental Seals, L. Punisher Gatling Cannon [Omni Mount], Flawed: Hangar Queen, TOTAL: 200. Veritech fighter. Unfortunately it has slightly worse maneuverability at high speeds, no copilot, and the same static defense & HP as the jet fighter.
And a few vehicles I worked up.

Car, Uncommon
Accel 2, Speed 5, Size 8, Maneuver 0, Moves 25 x momentum meters per round
Wheeled Drive, Defense -6, -1, 4, 9
Cockpit, Passenger Space x1, Cargo Space x2, Driver & passenger + 1 cu.m
Basic Equipment, radio, AC, heat, cup holders, power windows, lights
Total Cost: 50

Truck, Uncommon
Accel 2, Speed 4, Size 10, Maneuver -2, Moves 20 x momentum meters per round
Wheeled Drive, Defense -12, -8, -4, -0
Cockpit, Passenger Space x1, Cargo Space x4, Driver & passenger + 4 cu.m
Basic Equipment, radio, AC, heat, cup holders, power windows, lights
Total Cost: 52

Van, Uncommon
Accel 1, Speed 3, Size 12, Maneuver -2, Moves 15 x momentum meters per round
Wheeled Drive$$Defense -16, -13, -10, -7
Cockpit, Passenger Space x3, Cargo Space x2, Driver + 2 cu.m. + 4 passengers
Basic Equipment$$radio, AC, heat, cup holders, power windows, lights
Total Cost: 64

Cargo Truck, Uncommon
Accel 1, Speed 3, size 14, maneuver -4, Moves 15 x momentum meters per round
Wheeled Drive, Defense -22, -19, -16, -13
Cockpit, Passenger Space x1, Cargo Space x6, Driver & passenger + 16 cu.m
Basic Equipment, radio, AC, heat, cup holders, power windows, lights
Total Cost: 64

Motorcycle, Common
Accel 3, speed 5, size 5, maneuver 2 Moves 25 x momentum meters per round
Wheeled Drive, Defense 2, 7, 13, 18
Cockpit, Cargo Space x1, Driver + 0.5 cu.m
Open Topped, Fragile, Unstable, 4 HP, x2 momentum penalty
Total Cost: 33

Giant Bug Busses
Accel 2 (5), spd 4 (8), man 0 (50), walker (impass → diff & ½ act stand up), armor 10 (4&20), alt control necro spell
(1&10), beserker sys (1&10, 6k3), open top living (4&5), 2x ballista (10&10, 100m, 3k2+10), 8x people (8 & 8, 128)
Sz 28 (140) –
Sz 28 (30m long), hp 28 , resil 28, armor 10, def -46, 8m*momentum, carry 128 people, 2 ballista, pilot by necromancy
beserker sys = 6k3 & 2 ½ act, ballista = 100m range, single shot, full reload, 3k2+10 dmg, pen -

[lightningcat]

The bio-titan is riff on Neon Genesis Evagelion (https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Evangelion) which is an anime I enjoyed watching, but cannot actually recommend to people. Although, they seem to have missed the mark on recreating them. Which is kind of a bad thing when you use it as one of your examples.

[Telok]

The bio-titan is riff on Neon Genesis Evagelion (https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Evangelion) which is an anime I enjoyed watching, but cannot actually recommend to people. Although, they seem to have missed the mark on recreating them. Which is kind of a bad thing when you use it as one of your examples.

Ah, no wonder I didn't recognize it. I think I saw about 2 episodes over a decade ago and there wasn't much screen time for the evas in them. That wiki is a nuisance to use on a phone.

For a beta system that wants to encompass that, battletech, and several other systems it isn't bad. I'll try to dig up my at-at & at-st builds, those came out pretty well. As did some static gun emplacements, jet packs, and robots. It may be the author just didn't build the vehicle very well.

There are definite issues with "gun on a cart", ammo, some balancing (cargo space cost, autocannons as trash), and strength /melee without arms. You can try building the thing yourself, see how close you can get.

[Telok]

Right, so, the starship/spelljammer section starts with building a ship. I'm going to skip ahead to the actual play rules first and then come back to the ship building.

Ship combat.
"It's inevitable that at some point, two ships are going to start shooting at one another. What's the point of having a battleship if you can't liberate a few planets of their wealth?"

Rounds in space. Time taken is fungible. Ten minutes? A few seconds? Depends on what's happening and how far apart everything is. Apparently you're not supposed to sweat it.

Distance is in void units (VU), another fungible. I think the default is something like a million kilometers or some such. It'll come up somewhere.

Overview.
Surprise. Those surprised lose their first round turns.
Initiative. Sensors + Acceleration + 1d10, no personal scale modifiers used.
Taking turns. Go on your turn, take a maneuver action and any other actions that you want to.
Round ends. Rinse and repeat.

Actions.
You're required each turn to take a maneuver action, something about inertia. This is assuming that you're already moving and that emergency lithobraking hasn't occurred. After that you can take tactical (shooty), engineering (repairing/boosting), arcana (scanning/jamming), and command (yelling at your crew) actions.

When you're rolling you roll [crew assigned] keep {crew quality], splitting your crew between actions. Crew quality 2 is average, 1 is the gutter sweepings and misc. refugees you recruited because you can't actually pay real wages, really legendary ships might have a 5.

If you have bridge officers (PCs) they can use their skill in place of the crew quality for a test. you still need to actually assign crew.

Maneuver actions: Using the pilot skill to replace crew quality if there's an officer (PC).
Move - half or full speed with up to a 90 degree turn at the end. Does not normally require a test.
Adjust speed - (assigned)k(quality) + acceleration vs. DC 20 to go half or full speed +/- 1+1/raise.
Adjust heading - (assigned)k(quality) vs DC 15 or 25 to go half or full speed and turn either before (15) or before and after (25) moving.
Evasive maneuvers - You'll do this one a lot. Normal DC to hit a ship is crew quality * 3 + maneuver. With this roll (assigned)k(quality) and make a half move, the DC to hit you is not that roll + maneuver.

Tactical actions: Often using the ballistics skill for officers.
Shoot - (assigned)k(quality) +/- any gun/torpedo modifiers vs. the DC of the target.
Boarding party - If your ship is within 1 VU you can launch a boarding party (or 3 VU is you have the assault shuttles upgrade, or 5 VU if you have a teleportarium and their shields are down). Roll (assigned)k(quality) using a melee skill for the officer, if any, against the opposing (quality)k(quality). If the attacker wins the defender loses 2 crew +1/raise. If the defender wins the attacker loses half the crew they sent over.
Target subsystem - if you've scanned the target you can shoot any specific console/upgrade that you've identified on them. Shoot them at -1k0 to hit and the upgrade/console is disabled until it's repaired at a DC equal to the damage you did. Ah, that means that you're going to have to down their shields first... I think.
Ramming - If you're within 1 VU and facing the other ship you can make a pilot test... possibly using the tactical officer's piloting? the assigned piloting crew or tactical crew?... (assigned)k(quality) + maneuverability vs. their defense. Damage is based on ship size, escorts do 1k1, destroyers do 2k1, cruisers do 2k2, battleships do 3k3, plus half your speed. This ignores shields and your ship also takes half the rolled damage. Then everyone has to roll on the ship critical damage chart. An example combat involving a ramming action would help.

Engineering actions: Mostly tech-use.
Boost weapons - Next turn your shields don't regenerate and you can only do a half move. Roll (assigned)k(quality) vs DC 15 and do +1k0 plus +1k0 per +10 over the DC in damage for all weapons on their next attack. huh, I hadn't noticed that before. It's the weapons next attack, not on the next round.
Boost shields - Next turn you can only do a half move and your weapons do -1k0 damage. roll (assigned)k(quality) vs. DC 15 and immediately regenerate the shields plus another 1d10 points per +10 over the DC that you get.
Boost engines - Next turn you shields don't regenerate and your weapons all do -1k0 damage. Do the usual roll vs. 15 and n your next maneuver action (next turn since that's apparently the first thing you do) you get an extra half move of distance plus another +1 per +10 over the DC.
Boost sensors - next turn your shields don't regenerate, your weapons do -1k0 damage, and you can only do a half move. Usual roll, usual DC, +1k0 to the next arcana check and another +1k0 per +10 over the DC.
Emergency repair - Usual roll and usual DC unless something else specifies a DC (individual consoles to repair, etc.). Success gets you 1k1 hull points back, +1k0 more per +10 over the DC. Cannot repair more than half the damage done since the ship's previous turn. Do this last if you ram somebody, that way the ramming damage is 'since the previous turn'.

Command actions: Doesn't use assigned crew or crew quality, usually charisma + command skill from the captain alone. This would mean that your personal boosts and feats will work with it.
Brace for impact - Roll vs. DC 30-(5*crew quality) to reduce crew losses from critical damage by 1 (minimum 0) for the next round.
Hail - initiate social combat with the opposing captain/commander. If they're listening and want to talk to or taunt you.
Picard speech - Roll vs. DC 20 and your crew quality goes up by 1 for the rest of the round. Do this at the beginning of your turn.
Micromanage - As long as you have at least 1 dot in the relevant skill for a roll you can add +1k0 to that roll. You do this once, one roll, so no taking one dot in 4 skills and adding to everyone's rolls.

Arcana actions - Usually arcana skill.
Active augury - (assigned)k(quality) vs. DC 10. Gets you one info bit plus another per raise on the roll. Target hull, crew, shield, console, or weapon.
Jam comms - Roll and until your next turn everyone has to beat your jamming roll to send messages.
Triage - (assigned)k(quality) and you use medicae for this, not arcana, if you want to sub in the officer skill. Against DC 15 and restore 1 lost crew + 1/raise up to half of what you lost since your last turn. This includes losses from boarding actions.

A ship with a fighter bay can launch fighters! Great! There's nothing else anywhere about fighter bays! Yay! Missing rules! Needs more editing! When do I run out of exclamation marks! Never!

Ok, ok. Fighters run as minions. Sort of. Assign some crew. If anyone want's the be the bridge officer for them the relevant skill is piloting. Each round use attack mode or support mode. In attack mode they work like a weapon. Roll (assigned)k(quality) to hit and (crew quality)k(half crew quality and round up) for damage, range is 2*crew quality, they don't have any other modifiers. In support mode they ward off boarding actions. Impose a -(quality)k0 penalty to any boarding actions. Also in support mode, once each round, you can have 1 crew worth of fighters takes a hit for the ship. That kills off the crew, but apparently you may have no issues with running out of fighter ships. If someone wants to shoot at the fighters they have a static defense of (3*crew quality) +10, and probably use the standard minion rules for taking damage.

Right, fighter rules are definitely unfinished test material.

Shooting & damage.
There are three weapon types, lance, torpedo, and arrays. Lance weapons you have to fire individually and assign crew to them individually. Same with torpedoes. Arrays you can link together, as long as a target is within range and firing arc. All the guns in the array use one set of assigned crew and one attack roll. They all hit or miss on that one roll, but they do damage separately. So assign some crew to your lance weapons, some more crew to your torpedo shots, and a bunch to the array weapons that are all firing at one target. If you want to split the arrays and shoot at two targets you have to treat them as different shots/weapons, assigning different crew to each one.

Ships are usually 3*crew quality to hit. So 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15. The Picard speech thingy only applies to rolls, not to this sort of thing. Generally unless you only assigned 2 crew or the opponent is doing evasive maneuvers you'll hit.

If the target has shields then the shields take the damage. Weapons have a disruption rating, the next shield regen is reduced by the disruption rating. Disruption stacks, I'm pretty sure on that, but it clears out after the next shield regen. If the shields run out the rest of the damage goes to the hull and the shields are "collapsed", they can't be restored or regenerated until combat is over. Any hull damage calls for a roll on the crit chart. Weapons have a critical modifier, you're rolling 1d10 +/- the weapon crit modifier on the chart. That does mean that some weapons will go negative and not inflict crits.

Apply the effects of the crits. If you run out of hull points the ship explodes killing everyone who didn't get into a shuttle or escape pod. This is where you make people burn hero points to ret-con that they were actually in the boarding party and set up a running fight on the enemy ship for the next session.

All in all this is another unfinished part of the system. I think it actually works a bit better than the vehicle rules so far. Dealing with space stations and ships moving to/from stationary is an issue (my PCs forgot to assign anyone to piloting and rammed an asteroid by accident one time). It really also sounds like velocity tracking was part of the rules at some point, but was dropped for the speed & half speed simplification. It probably wouldn't be too hard to work out a variant to do that if you really wanted to. What you really want first, after clarifications and fighter bays, is space stations and space kaiju. I've used spaceships as a basis for them, 3 - 5 of the biggest ships for a small-medium space station and a single ship with some hand waving for the kaiju.

Actually the space kaiju worked really well. I decided they had a sort of virtual crew amount of X for particular systems and always ran as crew quality 4 or 5. So piloting was Xk5, all weapon attacks were at Xk5, melee attacks were like ramming but the kaiju didn't take damage from them, they had Xk5 engineering and arcana actions, parasites or grubs/spawn worked for Xk5 boarding actions and fighters. No command actions obviously. Then you build them like a regular ship, give them a special attack, and describe them totally not like a ship. For taking damage you just ignore the effects that kill off crew, unless you want to let it shut down an ability or weapon. That's sort of hand wavy and specific to a kaiju or situation. I will note that the PCs never tried to do a boarding action on a kaiju on their own initative.

Next time: The crit chart, orbital bombardment, repairs, upgrades, silent running, and warp travel.

[Telok]

Hey-o crit chart!
<1 - armor scuffing
1 - attacker chooses a console on the target which is disabled until at DC 15 emergency repair is made.
2 - because surge protectors don't exist in the grim darkness of the far future a power surge kills off 1 crew
3 - sensors at -20 until repaired, DC 15
4 - hot plasma vents in a bad way, take 1 hull point of damage each turn until emergency repairs, DC 15
5 - bridge hit, kill 1 crew and no command actions until emergency repairs, DC 15
6 - thrusters, until a DC 20 repair cannot use adjust heading or evasive maneuvers actions
7 - take 1d10 hull point damage and lose 2 crew
8 - radiation leaks kill 1 crew a round until repaired, DC 20
9 - weapons offline until repaired, DC 20
10 - as #1 but the DC is 25 and you lose two crew as well
11 - vacuum sucks, lose 1d10 crew and all crit rolls are at +2 until a DC 15 repair is made
12 - engines out, drift in a straight line at half speed until two DC 20 repair checks are made, no piloting actions are available at all
13+ - lose 1d10 hull and 1d10 crew and roll again at the same modifier as this roll

Yes folks, in theory if you could get a +12 modifier on the crit roll you would blow up any ship as soon as you got through the shields. Keep that in mind if you make a space-kaiju special attack that adds a crit modifier to the next roll.

Orbital bombardment, because nuking things from orbit is always on the table as a solution.
1) Move into low orbit with a DC 25 maneuver check. Problem: there's a ship console that allows you to fly around in the atmosphere and land on planets.
2) Shoot at something the size/area of a city block, DC 30. On a miss scatter by 1k1+1k0/check kilometers.
3) Stuff blows up.
3a) A lance weapon vaporizes everything in "a few hundred meters" of the shot. Everything else within a kilometer takes 10k5 energy damage.
3b) An array weapon nails an area of 10 sq. km. (just a shred more than 3 km by 3 km or a circle about 3.6 km diameter) around the target point and everything in there takes 8k4 damage. Remember to link all your array weapons so you do bunches of 8k4 damages. Also, no damage type mentioned, just keep using energy.
3c. Torpedoes act like a lance weapon but do 10k4 out to 3 km from the impact point. Also, no damage type mentioned, just keep using energy.

10k5 comes in a hair under 45 average damage. 10k4 somewhere between 35 and 40, call it 38 or so. 8k4 is just under 35, probably at 34 average damage. So, in theory, a fair bit may well survive. Plasteel and bulkheads, from the book 1 cover examples, have an armor rating of 32. Meaning that hardened buildings (like reinforced concrete backed by plasteel armor plating) may survive effectively unscathed. Size 25 vehicles with 20 armor can expect to be unaffected by a near miss with a lance weapon about half the time, and likely won't take more than a single point of damage since getting to 60 is only a 10% chance on 10k5 and you'd need 70 to do 2 points of damage. Undefined is how void shields affect this, as you can mount a low end void shield in a single vehicle slot for 60 vp. Also an elite soldier (carapace armor, resilience 5, 8 HP) will have 1 HP left after the average 10k5 (barely, you need 7+[5*8]=47 to bring them to 0 HP), an ork nob will still probably be shuffling around ([0.9*3]+[6*8]=51 to 48), and space marines will just be ticked off (armor 12, 6 resilience, 15 HP, 12+[6*15]=102).

Another issue is that the actual weapon used doesn't make a difference. A 1k1 turret is still a lance weapon and the mighty 8k8 rift torpedo are technically almost the same. Ok, house rule: Add the spaceship weapon damage rating to the damage rating in the orbital bombardment rules. Also the blast radius for lance and torpedoes is a base, halve the damage for each increment until it drops below 10 damage. Well the 1k1 turret is now a 10k6 and the rift torpedo is... 10k10+30... average 60+30, 90 to 3 km, 45 to 6km, 22 to 9 km, 11 to 12 km... Mayhap a bit high? Try weapon kept dice added as rolled dice. 1k1 -> 10k5, rift as 8k8 -> 18k4 -> 10k8 -> avg 56-ish, so 56 to 3km, 28 to 6km, 14 to 9 km. Right, quite useable that way and doesn't just autokill PCs for a single strike (arrays of 3+ weapons will though, but hero points).

Any ways, a functional baseline if imperfect.

Silent running. Yes, stealth in space doesn't really work in RL and hard SF. Thankfully we're not doing hard SF here and this for sure isn't RL.
When silent running you make maneuver checks against +10 DCs and your ship's speed value is halved. You have to do an space-arcana check every round and the result is the DC to find you with an active augury check. Another functional baseline.

Repairs & resupply.
In port:
By Wealth - repair 1d10 hull points and recruit 1 crew each week, while doing this you can't use your wealth for anything else. 1 week to generally resupply the rest of the misc. stuff for the ship. Torpedoes have to be bought separately.
By Backing - If it's your backer's port you get 1d10 hull & 1 crew a week plus all you reloads as fast as you can file the paperwork. Otherwise you have to wait for your backers to send guns, money, and lawyers. That's 1d10 weeks for the paperwork to go through and get back to you. If approved you're at the hull, crew, and victuals repair every week, otherwise you have to use back channels and favors and takes 2 weeks for each iteration. Torpedoes depend on if it's a 'friendly' port, if yes then it's a week per cost of the torpedoes with the cheap ones getting shipped in first, then going up the list. If it's a 'hostile' port you have to revert to wealth to resupply torpedoes.
By Followers - Your minions repair your command skill in hull points each week and your bar hopping recruits 1 crew from the locals in the same amount of time. It takes your followers 1d10 weeks to gather up the rest of the supplies. you have to use wealth to get torpedoes.

There's, ah, nothing about multiple characters trying multiple avenues. Nor anything about crew quality, minimum amount of crew or followers, or anything else. Also I'm just now realizing that there's nothing anywhere about your followers being the crew, given that you can do followers 3 & holdings 3 to get and run a decent ship. Hmmm...

Extended repairs, for when there isn't a port to limp to. A ship can make 1 (there's a console for more) repair effort from it's stores between port side resupplies. Find a safe spot to lay up, captain decided how many weeks to spend on repair efforts, the crew makes a DC 25 engineering space-action check, regain 1d10 hull points +1 per raise and all console & critical damage effects are repaired. Uh, so what's with the weeks thing? Also, ships don't exactly have small crews, you may end up seeing the party throw something like 20k2 -> 10k7 at this. This part needs work.

Upgrading your ship.
Outside of a port it's the DMs call if you can even find anything, and you can't install it. So, in port. Wealth test to acquire is DC 10 + 2/build point (that's back in the ship building section that we'll get to next time) and a day per build point to install. Since stuff tops out at 25 bp you're looking at a max of DC 23 (I round this one up) wealth tests, which won't put any strain risks on a wealth 5 character. Personally I think that a DC of 5+bp is better, simpler, and makes them think twice about happily nabbing the most expensive stuff as soon as they can make time for it.

Warp travel, getting from one place to another in less than a couple centuries.
You will need:
1) A spelljamming helm for movement (apparently they just come with the ship, no special effort needed).
2) A Geller Field for protection from warp STDs (comes with the ship too, still no special effort needed).
3) A navigator, being someone with at least one rank in divination magic. If you don't have a PC, ally, special follower, whatever, then the ship comes with one with attributes and skills at dots equal to crew quality. Suddenly I strongly suggest at least one PC investing in divination magic and the arcana skill, or at least a rank or two of the ally background.

Travel happens in 4 steps:
1) Go into the warp... Generally considered a bad idea on a good day. If you're at a working, active, syrenth portal relay then no sweat, you don't even need to roll. Otherwise a ship arcana action at DC 15+ is needed. The presence of modrons or "dampening fields" is noted as kicking it up to 20 and it's 25+ where space is "thick", whatever that means.

2) Locate the Sigil beacon and use it to plot a course. The navigator rolls arcana + wisdom + ship's sensors against DC 20. Failure and step 3 is at -10, succeed and you get +5/raise in step 3.

3) Travel. Make a ship maneuver check against DC <check a chart> 10 to 25, based on distance, the condition of the DMs large intestine, any your bonus/penalty from step 2. If no portal relay was used double the time taken. Success means you roll on the warp encounter chart and for every +10 over the DC halve the travel time. Failure is roll twice on the warp encounter chart and if you get -10 under the DC you're off course and end up wherever the DM thinks is funny.

4) Exit the warp. The navigator does another arcana + wisdom + ship's sensors against DC 20. Success and you exit somewhere safe. Failure and you exit somewhere dangerous, more dangerous and more immediate the worse you fail.

So remember back up there where I said the players will throw the whole crew at a single roll and go 20k2 -> 10k7? Same issue. Take a 60 day trip across a "sector" at DC 20 in a low end "endurance class support ship" with 14 crew and crew quality 1. Step 1 ship arcana action 14k1+0 -> 10k3 -> average roll of 30, and a 97% chance of making 20. Step 2 trash navigator roll of 1k1+0 -> average roll about 7, and about a 1% chance at that 20. Step 3 14k1-10 -> 10k3-10 -> average roll of 20, 19% chance at 30, and a ~95% chance of getting 11+. So a 50/50 chance between 1 or 2 warp rolls, a 1/5 chance of it taking 60 days instead of 120, and about a 1/20 or less chance of going off course. Granted step 4 is going to be hairy coming in at -10 or -15 under the DC, but you can have everyone back at piloting for 10k3 to avoid hitting anything. Now think about using a battleship with 24 crew on this, getting 10k8 and having a 55% chance of getting 55 or a 39% chance of 60. Cut that 120 days down to 15 days.

That's the big flaw with the spaceship rules, throwing a full crew at a single task at a time causes issues. Even in combat if you just split out between piloting and gunnery on an average quality 2 crew with a picard speech you start looking at evasive maneuvers of 10k4 and gunnery of 10k4, averaging in the upper 30s on each before the equipment mods. If you're hitting you opponent you shift more crew to piloting and get even harder to hit. If you're willing to take a hit and are close enough you can try boarding actions with 22k3 -> 10k9 vs. the absolute best of 7k6 (quality 5 crew and the defensive murder servitors) thus 62% to 55 vs. 51% to 40 making the defenders lose 3 to 5 crew.

Well, think about it. I haven't hit on a really good solution yet other than artificially restricting the rolls to using 1/3 max ship crew, but that's ultra harsh on the small ships with 12 crew.

Warp encounter table, the one you always roll on every trip. You're rolling a 1d10, possibly with modifiers.
<3 - boring & safe.
3 - dreams & hallucinations. No rules, no guidance.
4 - lost time, possibly years and years pass while you spend 3 days in the warp. No rules, no guidance.
5 - ghosts & shades. No rules, no guidance.
6 - corridors warp & gravity shifts. Redraw the ship floorplan with a randomizer? No rules, no guidance.
7 - ghost ship, sensors detect a phantom ship just at the edge of their range. The PCs will ignore it, wimps.
8 - general madness in the crew, PCs have to do something or else chaos. No rules, no guidance.
9 - a daemonic entity shows up onboard. Anything from instant attack to lurking in the vents for years. No rules, no guidance.
10 - a warp storm throws you off course, the navigator has to re-plot the course. Well, that's my interpretation because... You guessed it! No rules, no guidance.
11+ - Geller field failure, do emergency repairs or do an emergency crash out into astral space. Or just die in the warp I guess. Same old, same old. No rules, no guidance.

Yeah, do building ships next time. For now... They're a decent baseline but obviously unfinished. Guess what isn't mentioned at all? The crystal spheres that separate normal places from astral space. Where syrneth portals are located. Navigation without the Sigil beacon. Sensor ranges and sensitivity outside of combat. What happens when you fail entering or exiting the warp (free rerolling just means the rules don't do anything). Really, port-to-port while skipping the travel stuff in between and blowing stuff up once in a while is about what they cover. If you skip the actual traveling they work out ok.

[Telok]

Ha! Found them!

I'd wondered where my vehicle additions and house rules went. They went into my cheat sheets.

FALLING:
Take 1 wound per 2 meters. Dex+Athletics v. 15 = -1 wound & another -1 per raise
Alternate: Damage of 2k1 per 2 meters, no cap. Same dex+athletics.

Ramming:
Free action on move into: control test V. defense -> damage [size]k[1/2 momentum], both vehicles damaged
Then roll (drive or pilot) + (composure or constitution) v. rolled damage
Success = stay in control, Fail = out of control, Both: & reduce momentum by 2
Personal dodge: dex + acrobat V. momentum x speed
Personal brute stop: [strength + size]k[size] V. size+momentum+damage, still takes ½ damage


Blue Chain-Saw Cyber-hexapod-Bear: L3 Cocaine Wizard guild meeting door prize
Str5, dex2, con4, cha1, fel1, cmp2, int1, wis3, wil3
perception2 stealth1 brawl5 acrobat2 athletic4
triple attack, wp focus, wp spec, fearless
fleet of foot – x2 run dist, + fatigue > 1 rnd
Speed 7, run 98, Size 7
Def 11, ac 6 (8 giz&legs), resil 7, hp 14
sneak 3k2, sense 6k4, dodge 4k2, parry 8k5
Cybersenses – thermo vision
Cyberheart – ignore first gizzard crit
Cyberlimbs – no blood loss crits
Chainsword legs – dude!
IMMUNE: poison disease eat drink :: int+craft to repair (15,20,25) :: only death on giz crits
Resource: pyros (9max3, 1/hour)
Immune fear & pinning, roll Will v 15 to stop fighting
chainsword legs: 10k5, 10k2 R, pen 4, tearing :: has 6 of them


This means I have a number of things, mostly vehicles, floating around in my hand written notes that I need to enter into my sheets.

[Telok]

How to build a spaceship.
1: Build a giant tube with a cone on the top, some chairs in the cone, and a valve on the bottom.
2: Fill the giant tube with a lot of really volatile chemicals under really high pressure.
3: Put some people in the chairs.
4: Point it up.
5: Light a fire under the valve.
6: Have someone go in and turn the valve to 'open'.
7: Did you do lots of complicated math, engineering, and chemistry?
7a: Yes? The people in the chairs might go to space today.
7b: No? The people in the chairs are having a very bad day.
7c: Either way you're going to have to find another shmuck to open the valve on the next one.

Oh, build different spaceships? DtD40k7e spaceships? Well we can go over that too.

I'm gonna be honest and renumber the steps a bit.
Step 0 or 5: Determine build points
Step 1: Choose a hull.
Step 2: Outfit the hull.
Step 3: Buy guns.
Step 4: Finishing Touches.
Step 5 or 6: Go blow something up.

Build points are a scale from 0 to 230 in odd increments. They map from 0 holdings to 5 holdings. So without a holdings background your character doesn't come with a ship. This will also inform you of roughly how much in the way of other backgrounds you'll need to maintain and run the thing. Unfortunately nowhere in either book does it talk about someone with holdings or such but not enough of the other backgrounds they needed for upkeep.

Choose a hull as the basis of your ship. Hulls got stats.
Class: Size -> escort, destroyer, cruiser, battleship. Affects ramming damage.
Cost: In build points (bp).
Crew: Amount of crew at maximum capacity. This is the total number of dice a ship can roll each round in combat, thus it is very important. However it's not a set number of warm bodies and doesn't cover passengers. Population count is noted as being about 10/crew on escorts up to about 50/crew on battleships. This would mean that the biggest spelljammers, kilometer long force-of-destruction battleships, have about 1200 people on them. For my game I've upped the in game length measurement by about 1.5 and the body/crew ration by about 2.5, to give a bit grander scale to things. Also I actually looked at RL ships & crews as comparison points.
Hull strength: Ship hit points. Hull points. Whatever you run out of in order to blow up.
Maneuverability, acceleration, speed, sensors: You should be able to guess, they're numbers that modify other numbers except speed is a maximum. Although speed mentions that a void unit of distance is normally about 6 million meters. I'm not doing the searches to figure out what that maps to. Probably some light second count or something.
Consoles: Console is a term for the general ship equipment, upgrades, modules, addons, and what have you. Consoles are you customized bling. Each console has a type and they go in the appropriately types console slot. Except universal consoles. A universal console can go in any slot and any kind of console slot can hold a universal console.
Weapons: Yo guns.
...And not mentioned are shields. Editing error? Shields are kinda important what with all the shooting going on.

A sampling of the ship hulls:
* Steamboat - escort, 10 bp, 12 crew, 40 hull, speed 6, 2 universal consoles, guns 1 forward & 1 rear. This is your smallest and cheapest possible ship.
* Sultana - escort, 20 bp, 14 crew, 45 hull, +5 maneuver, +10 acceleration, speed 12, 1 tactical & 1 universal console, 2 forward guns, 1 aft gun.
* Thresher - destroyer, 30 bp, 16 crew, 60 hull, maneuver +5, accel +10, speed 10, sensors +5, console 1 each of arcana, command, engineering, universal, 2 taticial consoles, 3 forward guns, 2 aft guns.
* Cole - destroyer, 40 bp, 18 crew, 55 hull, +5 maneuver accel and sensors, speed 9, consoles are 2 arcana, 1 command, 3 tactical, 1 universal, 2 guns each fore and aft.
* Borealis - cruiser, 50 bp, 20 crew, 70 hull, +5 accel and sensors, speed 9, 2 of each type of console except no universals, 2 guns each fore and aft.
* Belle - battleship, 75 bp, 24 crew, 90 hull, -5 maneuver and accel, speed 4, 1 arcana, 2 command, 1 engineering, 3 tactical, 1 universal, 4 forward guns, 3 aft guns.

Total of 14 hulls, Steamboat is the least and Belle is pretty much the most (there's another battleship, 100 hull and jiggles a few bits around).

Crew quality, from 1 to 5. 1 costs -5 bp, 2 costs 0 bp, 5 costs 30 bp. Remember that crew quality is by default your kept dice on ship checks.

Shields: MK1 to MK4 costing 10 bp to 25 bp in 5 point increments. More is better. They come in 5 types.
* Standard starts with 60 max & 15 regen, ends with 120 max & 20 regen.
* Covariant starts with 80 max & 5 regen, ends with 160 max & 10 regen.
* Regenerating start with 50 max, 25 regen, ends with 100 max, 35 regen.
* Resilient starts with 60 max & 5 regen. ends with 120 max & 10 regen. These never reduce their regen for disruption.
* Multi-over-complicated-how-does-this-work starts with two max 20 & regen 10 shields, ends with SEVEN max 20 & 10 regen shields. It says these shields are layered have to be targeted and brought down separately. The only way I've gotten them to work is that they ALL regen until ALL of the layers are down. Which is a bit of a nuisance to keep track of in combat. Another way that I haven't tried yet is to have the targeted ship decide which shield gets hit by any one shot and ignore all the 'layer' talk.

All weapons have a disruption rating. Disruption reduces shield regeneration for the next turn and each hit stacks. It seems like an interesting set of trade offs, and I've thrown ships with every type of shield at my PCs. They all seem to shake out about even in practice, but my PCs may have a fairly balanced weapon load out. I've taken to just using the resilient on all NPC ships because it's easier for me to track. And by track I mean just ignore disruption. The players haven't caught on yet.

Weapons are mounted bow or aft. There are 4 firing arcs: front, back, left, right. Narrow weapons can only fire in their mounted arc, they're also the biggest hitters. Normal weapons can fire into the side arcs as well. Wide weapons can fire into any arc at all and don't care where they're mounted, they also do the least damage.

Lance weapons, you have to assign crew to each one individually.
* heavy cannon, 6k4 damage, 5 disruption, -10 accuracy, +3 criticals, 20 range, narrow arc, 15 bp.
* cannon, 4k3 damage, 4 disruption, -5 accuracy, +2 criticals, 10 range, normal arc, 10 bp.
* turret, 3k2 damage, 3 disruption, +0 accuracy, +0 criticals, 5 range, wide arc, 10 bp.

Array weapons, you can link these to shoot at a target and they all share set of crew and one attack roll then.
* heavy beam, 4k2 damage, 2 disruption, +5 accuracy, +1 criticals, 15 range, narrow arc, 15 bp.
* beam array, 2k1 damage, 2 disruption, +10 accuracy, -1 criticals, 10 range, normal arc, 10 bp.

There are no wide arc arrays. If you absolutely needed them you can follow the pattern of knocking them down a peg in every category except cost.

Then you get the weapon type options to modify each one with. These adjust the base numbers and everything is a trade-off. Las is the default type with the stats given above. Melta, +1k0 damage, -2 dis, half range, -5 bp. Plasma, +1k0 damage, +2 dis, -5 accuracy, +5 bp. Orgone, -1k0 damage, +2 dis, +5 accuracy, -2 crits. Mass driver, -2 dis, +5 accuracy, +2 crits, half range. Positron, -5 accuracy, +2 crits, double range, +5 bp. Antimeson, -1k0 damage, -2 crit, double range, -5 bp.

Or for 5 bp you can mount a torpedo tube with 5 torpedoes somewhere. Pretty much everything is by torpedo type and there's a console to extend the ammo magazine. Almost all torpedoes have a special thingy, but you have to buy them separate. They cost a few points to start off with, after the initial set you're down to buying them individually(or stealing, my players started a war by knocking over a small depot-base for some torpedoes).
* micro, 4k4, dis 2, crit +2, acc +5, range 25, normal arc, smaller and less damaging in orbital bombardment, 1 bp.
* photon, 6k6, dis 3, crit +3, acc+0, range 20, narrow arc, nothing special, 2 bp.
* monopole, 6k4, dis 10, crit +0, acc +0, range 20, narrow arc, hit ships take -10 to maneuver & accelerate for 1d10 rounds (no stacking), 2 bp.
* quath, 4k4, dis 0, crit +8, acc +0, range 20 narrow arc, they ignore shields but lose the +8 to crits if the ship has any shields, 2 bp.
* cruise, 6k6, dis 3, crit +3, acc +0, range 50 narrow arc, teh ship doesn't have to get to a stable orbit before initating orbital bombardment, 3 bp.
* high accuracy, 6k6, dis 3, ctiy +3, acc +10, range 20, wide arc, if orbital bombardment misses you can reroll the scatter and choose which one to use, 3 bp.
* rift, 8k8, dis 4, crit +4, acc -5, range 30, narrow arc, ships that lose hull on a hit also lose 1d10 crew, the damage radius for orbital bombardments is doubled, leaves daemons behind, 5 bp.

Eh, detail the bingy options next time. This is all pretty battle mat oriented. I'd appreciate something a bit more capable of managing non-gridded combat out of the box. But that's at least partially personal preference co sidering how closely some of this maps to the Starfinder space combat.

[lightningcat]

While the space combat rules seem to hit all of the common problems that space combat has, it also seems to have needed some dedicated playtesting too. Of course, my own attempts at making space combat have ranged from useless garbage to broken mess, so maybe I don't have any room to talk.

[The Glyphstone]

How to build a spaceship.
1: Build a giant tube with a cone on the top, some chairs in the cone, and a valve on the bottom.
2: Fill the giant tube with a lot of really volatile chemicals under really high pressure.
3: Put some people in the chairs.
4: Point it up.
5: Light a fire under the valve.
6: Have someone go in and turn the valve to 'open'.
7: Did you do lots of complicated math, engineering, and chemistry?
7a: Yes? The people in the chairs might go to space today.
7b: No? The people in the chairs are having a very bad day.
7c: Either way you're going to have to find another shmuck to open the valve on the next one.



The operating instructions for Up Goer Five (https://xkcd.com/1133/), it appears.

[Telok]

While the space combat rules seem to hit all of the common problems that space combat has, it also seems to have needed some dedicated playtesting too. Of course, my own attempts at making space combat have ranged from useless garbage to broken mess, so maybe I don't have any room to talk.
I think the closest I've done is rewrite the Traveller space combat to be more friendly and intuitive to people who have only ever played d20 type games.


The operating instructions for Up Goer Five (https://xkcd.com/1133/), it appears.
I love that book.

Let's see, DC 10 + (2 * bp) as a wealth test to buy ship components. That means DC 12 per micro torpedo, DC 16 for cruise or high accuracy, and DC 20 for rifts. Otherwise it's DC... well bp 5 = 20, bp 10 = 30, bp 15 = 40. Hm, wealth 5 has about a 45% chance to hit DC 30, then you'll roll for wealth strain. Looks like you're getting your shield and weapon upgrades as loot. Better work on those boarding actions to try and capture enemy ships. Also, of course, there's nothing about selling or trading stuff either. On to the consoles.

Arcana consoles:
* ancient spelljamming helm, 10 bp, halves the ships' travel times but adds +2 to the warp encounter rolls. Will never be used unless you solve the "throw 18 crew at the piloting check" issue.
* bioneural gel packs, 5 bp, computery bits, reroll any one arcana test once per combat.
* cloaking device, 15 bp, +20 to silent running checks.
* enhanced sensors, 5 bp, sensors +5.
* improved shields, 10 bp, +10 max shields, only to the outermost shield for the multi-blargh shields.
* teleportaruim, 15 bp, make boarding actions at 5 vu distance if the target's shields are down, also like a Star Trek teleporter and it has all the narrative issues that thing has too. The "not through shields/shielding" is something to keep in mind, also something for people who live in a universe with teleportaruims to keep in mind. Whether or not you can zorp through your own ship's shields is up to the DM (I do "no, but you can flicker your shields for 30 seconds in sync with your teleporter to get in/out" which only leaves you vulnerable to other people who know you're using the teleporter and are watching you in order to do their own teleporting shenanigans).
* warpbane hull, 10 bp, -2 on warp encounter rolls. Makes travel pretty boring.

Command consoles:
* advanced bridge design, 10 bp, fancy command and control setups, +1k1 on command actions. Plus seat belts and fire extinguishers. In my game the bridges don't have seat belts or fire suppression unless you take this one. And if you blow up the bridge too much (rockets, fireballs, and a warp vortex) you can lose it until you re-buy the console. Why yes, that happened, why do you ask? There were holes to the other decks above and below across half the bridge and all the computers were blown up.
* destiny knot, 15 bp, quote "A mysterious and extremely rare device, the Destiny Knot is a tangle of wires and cords that wind themselves throughout the ship, using arcane and bizarre methods to improve nearly every system on the ship in subtle ways." The captain and bridge officers can use hero points to reroll ship actions and stuff. Anyone's hero points for any action.
* diplomatic quarters, 5 bp, +1k0 on socials with people who aren't immediately hostile. You need to actually invite them over for tea and orgies to get the bonus.
* library computer, 5 bp, as long as you can consult the computer for a few minutes you can try untrained lore checks and get +1k1 on all lore tests.
* self destruct, 5 bp, probably really just an npc option, use a command action to set a delay from 'now' to 'sometime tomorrow', deals 4k4 to everything within 5 vu. Nothing about what happens if you'l landed or crashed the ship and then set it off.
* tenebro-maze, 10 bp, on any crit result where the attacker get to choose a console you choose instead.

Engineering consoles:
* ablative armor, 10 bp, ignore the first hit on your hull every fight. No damage, no crit, nothing.
* damage control station, 10 bp, +2k0 to emergency repair rolls. DMs option if it applies to anything else.
* eps conduits, 10 bp, "electro plasma systems" conduits, technobabble that provides +10 on all successful divert power checks. Gotta hit that DC 15 before you get the bonus.
* hardened armor, 5 bp, +10 hull points, explicitly may be taken multiple times.
* large engine core, 15 bp, +2 speed and +5 acceleration.
* reinforced bulkheads, 10 bp, -3 on all crit rolls. Really good for npc ships that are probably going to get shot up.
* thrust vectoring, 10 bp, +5 maneuverability.

Tactical consoles:
* arsenal, 5 bp, space for 10 more torpedoes. Literally a bigger magazine that can feed any of your torpedo tubes.
* assault shuttles, 5 bp, do boarding actions from 3 vu, shields are not an impediment.
* grappler arms, 15 bp, may choose to grapple instead of ram, only the larger ship (or the grappling ship of they're equal size) can move and both ships move when it does. Really calls for crashing and modifying crashing rules. I guess you can use it to ram other ships?
* murder servitors, 5 bp, the ship has a bunch of skull faced killing machines, +2k1 when defending from boarding actions. Plus you apparently have access to a bunch of murder-bots to play with. The combat servitor stats from the end of book 1 work ok, even if they aren't that impressive against PCs.
* ramming prow, 10 bp, when ramming do an extra 1k1 damage and +2 crit roll to the enemy and you don't take a crit roll yourself.
* targeting computer, 15 bp, +5 all shooting checks.
* weapon capacitor, 10 bp, your energy weapons do +1k0 damage.

Universal consoles (these can go anywhere):
* advanced sickbay, 15 bp, may recover all the crew lost since your last turn in combat. Without this you're limited to half. Plus it probably counts as a full-on hospital.
* cargo bays, 5 bp, enough room for stuff that you can go trading, implies but doesn't say that you can take this more than once. Too bad there isn't anything about trading in this book. Well, you can crib off of Traveller, that game did lots of work on that end.
* expanded shuttle bay, 5 bp, you get upgraded from 2 shuttles to 4. Yeah, um, about those missing shuttle stats? I suppose you could use this as the basis to replace your shuttles when they get blown up.
* extended supply vaults, 10 bp, go twice as long between resupplying (no rules!) and make two extended repair checks between resupply instead of just one.
* hidden cargo bays, 10 bp, smaller but hidden cargo bays that can't be scanned or found from outside the ship. No other rules/info attached.
* partial wing, 10 bp, wings or anti-grav or whatever, the ship can maneuver in atmosphere and land on planets.
* rating quarters, 10 bp, +2 crew. "Hey you! You get to sleep in the engine room now."

And that gets us to the end of the spaceship chapter. Not in order, but we've hit all of it. Definitely a not thoroughly tested system.
In case it matters I did work up a sort of general shuttle. The unarmed version holds a balance between 32 passenger to 30 cubic meters of cargo and can do surface to orbit twice. The armed version has two passengers, a feature to let them help with weapon controls (sort of fudging since that would technically be a copilot thing), space for armor and weapons, and can get to orbit once. The armed version also fits 4 PCs.
Shuttle, 350 vp or holdings 3, kind of fudging on speed since the rules as presented won't get anything over about 5520 kph, a bit better than 14% Earth escape velocity (and that last 720 kph is a s2 engine generating warp rolls at +30).
accel 1, size 30, speed 15, maneuver -10, vtol 6x, scramjet 20x, variable drive, micronized afterburners, environmental seals, micronized advanced sensors +10 & 20km, micronized Cockpit + copilot & standard equipment, XL engine 5, Feature – modular, feedback, fragile, hanger queen, inefficient controls, unstable, really fragile(junker).

Civilian version: micronized passenger space or cargo space or a mix up to 6 slots of size. 2x afterburners. If you drop one of the afterburner charges or degrade the sensors you can get up to 64 people in there, maybe 128.

Assault version: 2 micronized passenger space + assistant gunnery feature instead of the modular feature. 1x afterburners. Leaves 40 vp & 6 slots available. Faffing around with the 10ap and 5ap armors in various normal and micronized configurations results in 1 to 5 slots left and 15 to 35 vp left, or you can fool around with others stuff to try sticking in a weak void shield. Given that the thing has a 30 resilience and 22 hp I'd be willing to go with the lighter armor or none at all for most situations.

[Telok]

Pfoo. I found my write-ups of SW speeder bikes, snow speeders, at-at, and at-st. But the research site I get naval deckplans from has a bunch of new ships on it too. Just not enough time to do everything.

Well, alignments. A bugaboo of some systems (D&D), appendix of others (forgotten and unused unless it ruptures, Palladium), and completely ignored by yet more systems (Paranoia, Pendragon). We're in the "appendix" section mostly. If you have a chosen exalt you'll want to use this chapter though. It's actually decent, plus the DM can mine it for setting stuff or organizations.

There's no introduction or anything, it just dumps right into the alignments. The pattern is: Title, Blurb, two organizations/cults, and a 1 - 10 list of morality. The morals list is pretty much your 'cross this line and make an alignment test' stuff. As with VtM & Co. the more debased you are the harder it is to get worse. Sometimes.

New to this is the general alignments and unaligned. Where the character goes in for a whole pantheon/ethos instead of a specific godling. Starting with Chaos Undivided.
Blurb: chaos as a whole, natural leaders, aren't enemies to anyone except Malal.
Cults: The Black Legion, goal of uniting chaos which is like herding angry cats and a dragon, ended up more like consultants or a workers union than a religion. Word bearers, cult of fanatics dedicated to converting populations by force.
Morality: 2 - showing overt disrespect for the forces of chaos. 6 - failing to undermine the existing order in favor of chaos. 9 - refusing to aid another follower of chaos.
Sum: Does not actually get to be a lol-random dweeb without any restraints.

Khorn. Blurb: battle, blood, and honor, skull throne stuff, doesn't care for the blood of the innocent or weak, no glory without a challenge.
Cults: Dethkvlt, ritual murder, fair fights, more like a big game hunting club, no glory in an easy hunt, some limit who they prey on. Outer Heaven, destroyed space station founded by ill-treated elite mercenaries, picked up Khorne worship, got destroyed but philosophy for honor and respect warriors continued.
Extra: It notes that Khorne hates magic and that could make an exalt or something impossible to use. So a Khorny who gets to gain a rank in a magic school through a exalt or racial ability can take a rank in a sword school instead.
Morality: 1 - casting a spell. 6 - using stealth or trickery to avoid a fight. 9 - allowing another to kill an innocent.
Sum: Mixed glory, honor, murder, slaughter.

Nurgle. Blurb: Rot is part of the cycle of life, beautiful in all forms, be kind to the "brief blossoming" of life.
Cults: Vectors, run around infecting people, in mass or disguised as a caregiver. Hospitallers, run hospices that care for the dying, not grim or morbid, gregarious & sentimental, known occasional remission into asymptomatic carriers.
Morality: 2 - bring another back from the dead. 6 - attempting to change your own fate. 10 - refusing to comfort the sick or dying.
Sum: At least they went beyond the ick & goo version you usually see.

Slaanesh. Blurb: enjoy yourself, don't listen to advice, no social mores, anything taken to excess can work.
Cults: Noise Marines, Disaster Area (Douglas Adams reference) writ large. The S Academy, elite learning place & Slanny temple, devoid of distractions, place to pursue perfection.
Morality: 2 - doing less than your best at an important task. 6 - refusing to do something you enjoy. 10 - refusing a new, dangerous, experience ("Why no, now that you mention it I've never attempted [censored] with a modron pentadrone.").
Sum: It seems that this could make a high level chosen easy to manipulate.

Tzeentch. Blurb: trickery, plotting, magic, chess master, all pawns.
Cults: Player's Club, sets up situations & bets on them, wars, plagues, contests, etc. Illuminati, an ancient conspiracy except where it isn't, most 'chapters' less than 10 - 100 years old, general conspiracy within conspiracy stuff.
Morality: 1 - failing to pursue arcane knowledge, 6 - refusing to take advantage of a situation. 9 - failing to kill for the sake of knowledge.
Sum: Get knowledge, plan stuff, adapt to changes.

Malal. Blurb: Still the god of teamkilling ****-tards.
Cults: Random street gangs. Single champions. Not really anything organized in any way.
Morality: 2 - failing to take advantage of another's weakness. 6 - needlessly preventing a death. 8 - keeping your word when it would help another.
Sum: Teamkilling ****-tard.

Tiamat, the antithesis of Bahumut finally gets recognized as a religion, or at least as a bunch of rando cultists running around. Blurb: Ally of Bahamut in life, supposedly still kicking in death, will return.
Cults: Cult of the Dragon Reborn, does community centers and actual churches, tends to brainwash & strongarm members a bit. Council of Wyrms, cabal of ancient dragons who don't like Bahamut, getting into upper management requires handing over a bit of Tiamat corpse.
Morality: 1 - accepting an equal or less powerful person as a superior. 5 - failing to pursue evidence of Tiamat when there is little risk. 9 - failing to pursue any means necessary to gain more power.
Sum: Get stronk, raise Tiamat.

Well that was chaos, now we get the Blessed Order, the "good guys". Probably really more like the ones with actual organization. Blurb: Concerned with finding patters and meaning in life, everything for a reason, all happens for good.
Cults: Conspiracy theorists, not really a cult. Voidheart, give up all desires, secluded monasteries, make good mediators, self policing.
Morality: 2 - breaking your word of honor. 6 - breaking the law except to help someone in great need. 9 - failing to try to convert people to order.
Sum: Considering player's views on docking fees, being walking armories everywhere, and taxes... Not going to see too much of this one.

Cuthbert. Blurb: Law law law law law.
Cults: Judges, not really a cult but more a job the worshippers tend to gravitate to. Lynchmen, vigilantes enforcing law in lawless or corrupt areas as a religion.
Morality: 1 - breaking your word of honor. 5 - failing to pursue evidence of a major crime. 10 - breaking the law for any reason.
Sum: Pushing the rectally broomsticked paladin archetype here.

Sigmar. Blurb: Conquer everything for civilization and pave the wilderness.
Cults: The Inquisition, not Spanish (usually), no limit anti-chaos, infiltrates a lot of organizations. City Watch, a nosy neighborhood watch group as a religion, not actually the police.
Morality: 2 - attempting to destroy a civilization (my PCs succeeded, on accident). 7 - eating raw food (no sushi for you!). 9 - travelling with a known worshipper of chaos.
Sum: Less Cuthbert, more civilization promotion.

Bahamut. Blurb: ascended dragon-god, power in all forms, justice pusher.
Cults: The Final Word of Kings, assassins of dictators, tyrants, and other abuse of powers, not law - assassination. Platinum Knights, vast fortress monasteries, prioritize minions of Tiamat, fight evil in army vs. army settings.
morality: 1 - assisting in the resurrection of Tiamat. 6 - taking orders from an inferior. 10 - not treating your subordinates appropriately.
Sum: Versus Tiamat and abuse of power, enforces social hierarchy, seeks power.

Moradin. Blurb: Squat god, leave indelible mark, don't destroy another's legacy, respect family and ancestors.
Cults: Ancestor cults, family shrines, family feuds. Stonecutters, worship of ancient architecture.
Morality: 3 - telling a deliberate lie. 6 - not drinking at least one tankard of ale a day. 8 - shaving.
Sum: Dwarfy. Also, don't show emotion, help family, revenge insults, build stuff.

Pelor. Blurb: Nice guy, popular, followers are kind (generally).
Cults: Children of the Sun, brotherhood, universal peace, vegan, donate all money, generally all happy happy no matter what. Solar Skimmers, rich sporting yacht club with a veneer of religion.
Morality: 1 - torture anyone for any reason. 5 - failing to do a good deed every day. 9 - failing to spend at least an hour a day in sunlight unless physically impossible.

Omnissiah, a WH40k import, technology worship. Blurb: tech & machine spirits, treat machines like people (or better), purpose & efficency.
Cults: Tech-Priests, the class as (most of them) a cult, placate machine spirits, weird tech support but it works. Transhumanists, replace all your bits with machine, upgrade as much as possible.
Morality: 1 - willfully destroy ancient or advanced technology. 5 - failing to show respect to a machine when using it. 10 - speaking a language other than binary (you're a tech, make a translator).
Sum: WH40k tech-priests and cyborg fetishists.

Unaligned, another overall grouping for those who just can't choose. Blurb: Refuse to pick sides, no protection but no active haters.
Cults: Uninterested, don't care, not really a 'cult', often have to deal with proselytizers. Militant Atheists, hate gods, all just daemons and sorcerers faking it, only some go in for military hardware usage.
Morality: 2 - participating in a religious ceremony. 5 - discrimination based on religion (includes Malal). 9 - failing to help someone in genuine need.
Sum: Can't escape the system just because you write 'none' on the character sheet.

Raven Queen. Blurb: Death just is, natural cycle, enforce the natural cycle.
Cults: Cannibals, weird, secretive, mainly just a different burial rite, not generally appreciated by the public. Undead Hunters, kill all the undead, no exceptions.
Morality: 1 - creating an undead. 5 - unnecessary desecration of a corpse. 9 - healing anyone's wounds faster than natural.
Sum: Generic non-undead death god.

Vectron. Blurb: best god, not of anything, accepts worship from anyone for any reason, 9 out of 10 fictional doctors agree Vectron is real.
Cults: Third Reformation of the United Vectron Church, still having schisms, daily services, just sign up to shout whatever from the pulpit, as much entertainment as anything. Vectron's Witnesses, brainwashing, extortion, tithing, missionary stuff.
Morality: 3 - failing to praise Vectron by name every day. 7 - attempting to discredit anyone acting like a prophet of Vectron. 10 - failing to praise Vectron by name in every conversation.
Sum: Possibly the easiest an least work of any of the religions. Also, should be First Universal Third Reformation of the United Orthodox Vectron Association of Churches.

Corellon. Blurb: Elves and eldarin are perfect, snob, perfect, followers may tend to 'alternate fact' histories.
Cults: Elvpax, mostly just terrorist thugs, elves first, extremely annoying fascists. Elfaboos, less a cult that a minor self delusion movement, what it says on the tin.
Morality: 1 - failing at any task when your reputation is on the line. 4 - not shaving. 8 - eating meat form an animal that you didn't personally kill.
Sum: Snob & showoff with a coating of elf. You'll need to actually be good at stuff.

Luna. Blurb: "Goddess of being a fickle bitch.", change, independence, wilderness.
Cults: Therians, people with a belief they have animal souls, all walks of life, generally creep out werewolves. Anarchists, blow up civilization, not really a cult.
Morality: 1 - spending a month without going into the wild unless physically impossible. 5 - refusing to change when needed. 9 - shaving.
Sum: Mostly about change and respect nature stuff, definite Atkins diet/hunter-survivalist vibe.

Acerath. Blurb: Mortal wizard who traded bits of self for secrets and became a god, worshipped as all knowing but won't tell.
Cults: Confessionals, public service-ish, trades cash for secrets, told secrets are actually almost perfectly safe, liars get disappeared & don't ask. Librarians, collect all information and send to super secret library.
Morality: 1 - destroying unique knowledge. 4 - revealing your alignment. 9 - failing to pursue new knowledge at least one hour a day (random wikipedia link clicking!).
Sum: Easy enough, just go for knowledge and don't tell secrets. Well, easy for some.

Lolth. Blurb: Daemon ascended to godhood by worship of dark eldarin, saved dark endarin from something, annoyed chaos and order.
Cults: I'll be honest, it's moslty a satire of the stereotyped low end of the D&D Loth society stuff, pretty bashy for everyone involved. The names are literally 'rabid feminists' and 'black widows'. You can fill in the rest.
Morality: 1 - killing a spider of any kind. 6 - showing respect for a male. 10 - not causing harm to a friend when it would benefit you.
Sum: Better on NPCs. Annoy them by squishing spiders. Troll them by offering them money to shoot their friends and allies.

Next up is equipment. Given that you really could drop the whole alignment thing if you didn't use the chosen... A thought. Keep the names, swap in the Palladium alignment system for the 10 step program here, put a little spin on some stuff to match the fluff... It would work. Of course stripping out all the technology and rewrite some fluff, and this game would result in a rather over-the-top version of D&D Spelljammer too.

[Telok]

MOAR STUFF! The equipment chapter. We start with weapon creation, drugs and addiction for your needy needler ammo needs, more bionics (no artifact versions though). That's it. With this chapter we'll be done with book 2.

Weapon creation. Very beta rules here, I have the feeling they weren't really tried out on anyone before being published. You can use them to duplicate some of the published weapons, some I don't think you can duplicate, others I think come out better.

1) Choose a template. 2) Choose a type. 3) Apply mods. 4) Determine price.

Choose a template, sets the base stats. Options (everything does impact damage and is single shot at this step):
* pistol, 2k2 damage, penetration 0, 30m, clip 6, reload 1 full action.
* basic, 3k2 damage, penetration 0, 40m, clip 12, reload 1 full action.
* heavy rifle, 2k2 damage, penetration 2, 60m, clip 40, reload 1 full action.
* cannon, 3k3 damage, penetration 4, 60m, clip 4, reload 2 full actions.
* melee, 1k2 damage, 0 penetration.

Choose a type, the type of weapon matches the categories in the first book and of the vehicle weapons (yay consistency!). It changes some stats and defines which mods a weapon can take. Not all weapons can get all the mods.
Guns
* Ordinary, -1 final rarity (cheaper).
* Las, energy damage, reliable, double ammo.
* Plasma, energy damage, +2 penetration, double reload time.
* Melta, energy damage, +4 penetration, half range.
* Bolter, explosive damage, +1k0 damage, +2 penetration.
* Syrneth, energy or rending damage, 1 extra mod.
* Exotic, any damage type, 1 extra mod.
* Flamer, energy damage.
Melee
* Ordinary, rending or impact damage, -1 final rarity (cheaper).
* Parrying, rending or impact damage.
* Cavalry, rending damage.
* Flail, flexible, +1 final rarity (more expensive).
* Fencing, rending damage, balanced.
* Two handed, two hands, +1k1 damage.
* Syrenth, any damage type, +3 penetration, 1 extra mod.
* Chain, rending damage, tearing.
* Shield, defensive.
* Unarmed, rending or impact damage, brawling.

Choose two mods. Syrenth and exotics get three. You can't double up on mods but there are some with I & II and the same effect, so faux doubling up. Ranged and melee have different mod tables. The weapon type restricts which mods it can take. Each mod adjusts the rarity/cost either -1 (flaw), +0 (just two melee mods), +1, or +2. There is also absolutely no way I'm listing all those buggers. I'l pick a few of the interesting ones.

Melee (22 mods), all the specials found on the melee weapon in the first book plus a few new ones.
* Defensive, +0, ordinary parrying cavalry fencing syrneth, gains defensive.
* Extra damage and extra pen I & II, +1s, all types, these are the double-ups, +1k0 damage and +2 pen.
* Incendiary, +2, parrying two-handed syrneth, sets people on fire.
* Orgone Array, +1, syrenth, hit targets roll on the warp crap tables.
* Power Field, +2, any, gains power field.
* Toxic, +2, parrying fencing syrneth, gets toxic.
* Volatile, +1, fencing syrneth chain, damage dice explode on 9 & 10.

Ranged (46 mods), all the gun special effects form the first book plus a couple new ones.
* Arm mounted, +1, all, leaves the hand free (pistol fine, but cannon? both arms or only one?).
* Beam, +1, las, new property.
* Blast shield, +1, all, gains armored (+2 armor on that arm).
* Breacher, +1 melta, +1k0 damage at short range or less.
* CombiWeapon, +1, all, new property.
* Compact, +1, not bolter or flamer, new property.
* Cone, +1, flamer, gains the flame property (dex save instead of to-hit roll).
You know, that could go really long. Ok, quickly, stuff like half reload-range-ammo, double reload-range-ammo, blast 3, blast 5, treat targets as one size smaller, damage & penetration boosts, full-auto RoF options, as a spear or chainsword in melee, damage dice don't explode, they explode on 9 & 10, reroll 1s & 2s on damage, no darkness penalties, gain quickdraw, on hit roll 1d10, on 1 half damage and on 10 double damage. Lots of stuff.

You can make a half range, half ammo, overheating exotic (-3 total mods) to a syrneth proven (reroll 1s & 2s damage), volatile (damage explode 9 & 10), blast 5 (+6 total mods). Melee min/max would be ordinary, unbalanced, throwing (-2 total mods) to a power field, toxic, shocking, syrneth (+6 mods).

Mods determine rarity for buying purposes. Everything starts a +0 mods with common (DC 10) rarity. -3 is 'worthless' and DC 0, or you can go up to 'fabulous max' +6 for DC 40. Which does imply that a 2k2, pen 2, s/-, 30m, clip 20, heavy rifle (2 hands, must brace) that may overheat is basically free (drop the overheating to get to a DC 2 wealth test to buy one). On the other hand you can't make a melta gun (basic, 4k3 E, pen 12, s/-, 20m, clip 5, 2 full, rare) using these rules, which was a complaint by some players.

Frankly I've found it works OK for creating the occasional variant or signature weapon, buzz-saw tridents or an advanced sniper rifle for example. It is abusable, full-auto-burst beam las heavy rifle (DC 20 or 25, keep shooting full auto bursts using previous round to-hit roll) or half ammo armored hands free ordinary cannon (DC 10, only 2 shots each but +2 armor each arm and hands free). And, of course, I have no idea how some things are supposed to work, like full auto blast 5 weapons or the fact that you can make a "flame" version of a las gun. The last one is mechanically simple, basic + flame + reliable + double ammo, I just don't know what it's doing in the fiction.

Well, here are the new weapon qualities for ya.
* Beam - like a laser pointer, when you make attacks in subsequent rounds you can reuse last round's to hit roll.
* CombiWeapon - like an underbarrel grenade launcher, Attach the weapon to something the same size or larger, half the ammo and double the reload time.
* Compact - +10to the DC to find them if they are concealed (uh, no rules or suggestions were ever given for that), and it makes basic weapons one handed (no penalty for one hand use).
* Incendiary - sets stuff it hits on fire. The book 1 flamer effect was split into cone + incendiary for the purpose of mods, cone is the dex save instead of to-hit roll and incendiary is the set on fire part. Although this one apparently just automatically set stuff alight instead of having to fail an additional dex vs. DC 15 save.
* Proven - reroll damage dice below the proven number. The only one in the official list is 'proven 3', so reroll 1s & 2s.
* Razor sharp - if you hit by at least +10 double the weapon armor penetration.
* Storm - when firing full auto it gets +2k0 to damage per raise instead of +1k0 to damage per raise. The number of raises for the damage boost is still only limited by RoF. So your s/6 gun can got from a +30 over the DC doing +6k0 to that same +30 over the DC doing +12k0 -> +10k1.
* Twin linked - when firing a single shot +1k0 to hit and if you hit by +10 or more +2k0 to damage. (accurate + twin + red dot on syrneth or exotic, DC 30 to buy, +4k0 to hit on a half action aim, +3k1 on the first +10 over, +1k1 for every other +10 over).

Drugs. Buy 10 doses at once, +5 wealth test DC to double (double doubling allowed?), comes in 3 styles: needler ammo (does no damage but delivers the drug), social form (pill, powder, patch), or hyposprays that you can use with a melee attack (undefined type, brawling I presume). Every time you take one check willpower against the 'addictivity' or be addicted, this ranges from zero to 25. Keep checking once you're addicted because you move up a track. The addiction track is minor -> moderate -> major and the withdrawal symptoms are cumulative, major addiction gets al three levels of suckage. Minor: -1k0 all rolls. Moderate: your dice don't explode. Major: another -1k2 plus minor = -2k2 all rolls. To cure suck down the withdrawal for a week and make the addiction willpower check again. Success and you go down by one level of addiction, major -> moderate -> minor -> kicked the habit.

Oh, the "addictivity" sets the time before the first withdrawal symptoms kick in. Non = DC 0 = N/A, low = DC 10 = 1 week, med = DC 15 = 3 days, high = DC 20 = 1 day, extreme = DC 25 = as soon as the drug wears off.

16 drugs. Alpha, +1k1 vs. fear and for offensive social attacks, one scene, low addict. Bio-foam, stops bleeding, instant, non-addic (should this even work as needler ammo? super sharp paintball maybe?). Comfort, ignore your minor derangements and take 1 less insanity, unknown duration, low addi. Detox, ends all other drug effects and lowers withdrawal by 1 level, instant and unknown duration, non-add. Drive, +1 all mental characteristics & autofail perception checks, one scene, moderate ad. Flight, roll on the mental shock table & extra doses that day get another +1 cumulative to the roll, undefined duration (a day?), moderate. Frenzon, get the benefit of the frenzy feat & -1 to intelligence wisdom and fellowship, one scene, moderate. Hither, +2k1 to charm skill checks & -10 to willpower or wisdom to resist temptation, unknown duration, low. Null, -1k1 all spell casting checks & -1 caster level, 1 day duration, non (caster blaster). Obscura, 1d10 hours of mild & pleasant hallucinations, 1d10 hours, moderate. Polymorhpine, near perfect disguise of a scene or minor cosmetic surgery changes permanent, 1 scene or permanent, high. Slaught, +1 dexterity & +10 perception checks but +2 fatigue levels when it wears off, 1 scene, moderate. Spook, reverse mechanics of Null & all casting invokes warp crap, 1 scene, high. Stimm, ignore (but still take I presume) crit damage except for death causing ones & ignore all pain effects, 1 scene then suffer all of the ignored effects, moderate (this is the cyber-yeti bodyguard combat drug).

Well, pleasantly useable drugging. I'm assuming that all the stuff with undefined durations is basically a "one scene" thing. Nothing with extreme addiction though. Could be fun to TWF needler pistols loaded with slaught & detox for fast, fatigue based, take-downs.

Bionics. We're down to the last two pages before I have to think about reworking spells, sword schools, and gun katas. Or turning more of my helper app into web page versions. Or... Too dang much to do.

* Cortex implants, rare, cyber-brain stuff, poor: corpse -> "cyber-zombie" at -1 intelligence and fellowship, normal: just restores normal function to damaged brains, good: +5 to lore checks, best: as god & +1 intelligence.
* Implanted equipment, varies, implant stuff in yourself at +1 wealth rarity.
* Injector rig, uncommon, auto-drugging with personal OR remote controls as a half action, poor: 3 doses of 1 type of drug, normal: 3 doses of any drugs, good: 5 doses of any drugs, best: as good but you can use it as a reaction.
* Machinator array, very rare, implanted exoskeleton, base effect: +1 strength, -1 dexterity, +1 resilience, 3x your mass and no more swimming allowed. Poor: no more running or dodging, good: somewhat concealed and may look like armor, best: completely concealed. You can tell when a player has actually read the books by this showing up in almost any character build that doesn't need max dexterity and can wear concealing clothing.
* Voidskin, rare, built in space suit under your skin, poor: you have 3 rounds of air, normal: one minute of air, good: as normal plus 2 points of armor (no stacking), best: as good but 5 minutes of air and can't be detected without a decent medical scan.
* Mechadendrites, very rare, 5 types, no quality variations, only tech-prests can get them because they have the feat for the anchoring bionic bits and then they can only have a number of them up to their constitution. Ballistic: has a las pistol that can be fired once a round normally or as a reaction. Manipulator: a big claw with +2 strength for purposes of sustained force like griping or pulling, can lock around an anchor point as a free action to tether the tech-priest, can be used as a club with the +2 strength bonus, no fine manipulation. Medicae: +2k0 to medic checks, automatic stop blood loss as a half action, injector can hold one drug dose, small "chain-scalpel" as a 1k1 rending damage damage 0 penetration melee weapon, also adds +2k0 to interrogation checks. Optical: Camera, microscope, telescope, flashlight, all of that also in infrared (negates regular darkness penalties), and a +2k0 all perception checks. Utility: 2m of combi-tool, almost any normal tool you want to attach, and does fine & precision work.

That's it we're done. What next?

[Telok]

I am not dead yet
I can dance and I can sing
I am not dead yet
I can do the highland fling
I am not dead yet
No need to go to bed
No need to call the doctor
'Cos I'm not yet dead

I'm working on typing up a reword of the spell lists, I think I'm on the healing school at the moment. But it may well be a few more days before I get to post it.

In the mean time I also have some preliminary work done on the sword schools and gun katas. I did the same sort of thing, cut them down to a reduced format and put them in a spreadsheet for easy comparison. First step was to srandardize the gun katas with the sword schools. So the first rank is an action and weapon type you can use special moves with. Second rank is a -2 drawback of some sort. Third rank is a -1 skill check attack. Fourth rank is a permanent character bonus. Fifth rank is one item that tries to be awesome. The sword schools all fit the pattern but the gun katas were all over the place.

I'm not satisfied. Critique.

These are the schools/katas, format is "name - weapon type - action type". Question marks are the changes I've made. This is basically "what you get for that first dot".
desert - syrneth - called shot
devoted - flail - aid another
diamond - fence - feint
iron - ordinary - aim
sun - unarmed - fight defensive
shadow - parry - delay action
stone -2-handed - multi-attack
tiger - chain - all out attack
white - calvary - charge
-----
clay - pistols - called shot
crisis - heavy - suppressing fire
elem - primitive - multi-attack
point - basic? - full-auto burst
silent - las? or accurate? - aim
tin - ordinary? - delay action?

Then the second dot, restrictions then boosts, this is a short version used in a spreadsheet. Ideally there wouldn't be any duplicates.
-2 no damage
-2 no react til start next
-2 only OA
-2 defense @ -10 to next turn
-2 only in grapple
-2 only on unaware/helpless
-2 gain fatigue
-2 prone on not hit
-2 targ must move
------
-2 no damage ??
-2 defense @ -10 to next turn
-2 gain fatigue ??
-2 only in melee
-2 only on unaware/helpless ??
-2 only @ 1/2 hp or less

+1 -1k0 round/raise on hit
+1/+3 heal adj ally 1 or 2
+1 parry @ +5
+2 tearing
+2* fatigue
+1 delay dmg 1 min
+3 dex v. atk = immobile (snare)
+2 hit by +10 double pen
+1* ally +1k0 hit targ until you start next turn
------
+3 disarm on dex v. 20 ??
+1 allies use same hit loc
+1 reroll atk if miss
+2* fatigue ??
+2 tearing ??
+2 free action reload after shot ??

Third dot, the skill checks are all fine. I'd like to not double up on athelete (point blank), perception (silent snipe), or scrutiny (tin star), but it isn't too bad. The boosts are where I did the most work here.
+1 E type dmg ??
+2 double exploding dice
+3* extra attack
+2 pick a type damage
+2 targ -1k0 all until you start next turn ??
+1* range +5m
+1* +3 armor until you start next turn
+2 dmg -> roll 10s double & roll 1s halve ??
+2 movement with no AoO
------
+1 auto knockdown
+2 on hit targ lose 1/2 action
+3* no dmg roll does 1 wound ??
+1 force movement targ up to speed
+2 accurate
+1 ignore penalties from environment, crit injuries, & allies

Fourth dot, permanent character boosts, again I'd like to not double up. Again with the boosts I'd like to not double up, plus some of the rank 3 and rank 4 boosts are pretty similar. I mostly question those with question marks, but any feedback.
++ charge not in straight lines
++ HP +4
++ any atk type after feint
++ dodge/parry @ -1k0
++ init +5 ??
++ draw wp & atk = +2k1 to hit
++ resilence +1 on ground
++ react after all out attacks @ -2k2
++ melee @ -1k0 hit allies ??
------
++ parry with ballistics & wp OK ??
++ no bracing needed any wp
++ any dmg type with ranged attacks ??
++ no in-melee penalties for ranged
++ no range penalty ??
++ init +5 ??

+1 TP 5m before or after
+1* adj ally +2 def
+2 disarm save dex v.20 ??
+4 as power wp
+2 shocking ??
+2 toxic ??
+6 resilence -2
+4 dmg explode 9&10 ??
+3 on hit no parry/dodge til start next
------
+1 does not use ammo
+2 burst damage raises 1k0->2k0
+2 all 1s halve dmg & all 10s double dmg rolls ??
+2 also make standard unarmed atk
+1 make stealth after atk
+4 dmg explode 9&10 ??

Fifth dot, these need to be awesome. Fifth level characters building moves with these are expected to be punking greater daemons and going toe-to-toe with casters reliably throwing down the Energy Meteors, Dragon Form, and Necromutation spells.
+4 3k2 E dmg all in 2m of move path ??
+5 dmg +(devotion)k0 ?? split devotion as rolled dice between damage & to-hit ??
+1* on hit -1 resource
+5 no dodge/parry ??
+2 use targ wpn dmg as your wp dmg ??
+5 no dodge/parry ??
+1* blast(1)++
+5 ignore armor & cover & -1 resilence ??
+5 target provoke AoO on hit
+2 ignore cover & conceal ??
+4 RoF -> blast radius instead of more shots
+4 bleeding
+4 burst dmg raises @ point blank 1k0->1k1 ??
+1* study 1 rnd = +1k0 dmg ??
+4 dmg +(dex)k0

[Cluedrew]

I'm not satisfied. Critique.I gave it a shot but will all I know about the system the only really feedback I have is Silent Scope feels like it should use accurate weapons and not lasers. Yes lasers don't make noise but still. Also I generally liked Silent Scope and Clay Pigeon but the others feel a bit harder to pin down what they are going for (especially Tin Star, I have no idea what is up with Tin Star) so it is hard to say. What would you say the theme of each school is? Is it back in the original descriptions? I should go re-read those.

[Telok]

I gave it a shot but will all I know about the system the only really feedback I have is Silent Scope feels like it should use accurate weapons and not lasers. Yes lasers don't make noise but still. Also I generally liked Silent Scope and Clay Pigeon but the others feel a bit harder to pin down what they are going for (especially Tin Star, I have no idea what is up with Tin Star) so it is hard to say. What would you say the theme of each school is? Is it back in the original descriptions? I should go re-read those.

Tin star is trying for the old spaghetti western hero/sheriff motif. So the Lone Ranger's trick shots (I should look some of those up, presumably there should be online clips), the stand-off quick-draw duels, stuff like that.

Right, point blank is a question on it's weapon limitation. I thought the basic weapons as two schools already have the pistols and heavy. Tin star maybe should be pistols but then I want to change clay pidgeon. Silent using accurate weapons is fine by me, probably better thematically since the m.p. lascannon and pulse rifle are in the las group.

Edit: tvtropes a d wikipedia to the rescue. There's actually a cowboy sport shooting competition league. If we ID the sources of all the schools/katas it should make this easier.

[Telok]

Second verse, same as the first!


Lets see if I got the table code right. Rembering that the ++boost at 4th becomes inherent to your character and affects everything. The asterisk (*) after the modifiers indicates the ability to stack it, "adj" is adjacent/within reach, "ally" includes yourself unless specified. A 3k3 constitution/dexterity has about a 66% chance of making the DC 15 saves on fire, toxic, and shocking.



name-weapon-action
2st penalty
2st
3nd penalty
3nd
4th boost
4th
5th


desert - syrneth - called
-2 no damage
+1* -1k0 end of your next turn w/+1round/raise on hit (dazzle)
-1 athlete+str
+3 E type dmg & target on fire
++ charge not in straight lines
+2* teleport 5m (any dist split) before, after, or during atk
+4 4k2 magic E dmg all in 2m of move path & they are on fire


devoted - flail - aid
-2 no react til start next
+1/+3 heal adj ally 1 or 2hp
-1 medic + wis
+1* adj ally(not self) +3 def to start of your next turn or not adj
++ HP +4
+2 double explode dice, choose one
+6 dmg +(devotion)k0 & heal 1/2 wounds done self or adj ally, min 3hp


diamond - fence - feint
-2 only as OA
+1* parry @ +5 to start of next turn
-1 scrutiny+composure
+3 disarm target
++ any atk type after feint
+3* extra attack
+2* on hit -2 resource or +1k1 damage, any combo choose per atk, neg/no resource -> dmg @ -2=1k1


iron - ordinary - aim
-2 defense @ -10 to next turn
+1 tearing
-1 perception+wis
+1 any damage type
++ enemy dodge/parry @ -1k1
+4 as power wp
+5 no dodge/parry


sun - unarmed - defensive
-2 only in grapple
+1/+2* fatigue
-1 deceive+cha
+2 on hit target -1k1 all rolls to end your next turn
++ dodge/parry=redirect melee atk to adj
+2 use targ wpn dmg as your wp dmg
+5 normal dmg then fling targ as (jump dist - size) meters (use jump rules), auto prone, & ballistic thrown atk w/(size)k1 dmg to both


shadow - parry - delay
-2 only on unaware/helpless
+1 delay dmg 1 min
-1 stealth+dex
+1* range +5m
++ draw wp & atk = +2k1 to hit
+2 toxic & shocking
+4 bleeding & immedate bleed check


stone -2hand - multi
-2 gain fatigue
+2 dex v. atk = immobile (snare)
-1 intimidate+cha
+1* +3 armor til next turn
++ resilence +1
+6 target resilence -2, min 1
+4 gain reach, attack all, save snare to end your next turn, same save prone


tiger - chain - all out
-2 prone on not hit
+2 hit by +10 double pen
-1 acrobat+dex
+2 ignore all TWF penalties, if feats +1 extra atk
++ react after all out @ -2k2
+4 dmg explode 9&10
+5 ignore armor & cover & -1 resilence


white - calvary - charge
-2 targ must move
+1* ally +1k0 hit until start next
-1 command+cha
+2 your moves no AoO until start next round
++ enemy in melee @ -1k1 hit
+3 on hit no parry/dodge util start your next round
+5 provoke free melee AoO on hit from everyone (includes you)


clay - pistols - called
-2 no damage
+2 ricochet off appropriate surface to deny dodge
-1 perform+cha
+1 auto knockdown
++ parry ranged by shooting the bullets/blasts
+1 does not use ammo
+2 ignore conceal & lack of visibility/targeting


crisis - heavy - overwatch&suppress
-2 defense @ -10 to start your next turn
+1*/+2* +1 or +3 RoF
-1 tech+int
+2 on hit targ lose 1/2 action
++ no bracing needed any weap
+2 burst raise 1k0->2k0
+3 RoF -> blast R & allocate bullets to targets within


elem - primitive - multiattack
-2 gain fatigue
+1 reroll attacks that miss during this action
-1 arcana+int
+1 any damage type
++ parry with ballistics & wp is OK
+3* targ -1 resilence, min 2
+3 bleeding


point - basic - full auto
-2 only in melee
+1 allies use same hit loc
-1 athlete+str
+1 force mv targ speed
++ no in-melee penalties for ranged
+2 also make standard unarmed atk
+4 choose hit location


silent - accurate - aim
-2 only on unaware/helpless
+1* study 1 rnd = +1k0 dmg, rounds up to this bought
-1 perception+wis
+2 gains accurate
++ no range penalty for accurate weapons
+1 stealth roll after atk, prevents being spotted
+5 double rolled dmg dice


tin - ordinary - delay
-2 only @ 1/2 hp or less
+1 delay a full action shot
-1 scrutiny+composure
+3 disarm target
++ init +5
+3 ignore all external imposed to-hit penalty (any penalty not from action type & your feats/options)
+4 dmg explode 9&10

[Cluedrew]

Yeah I think switching Tin Star and Clay Pigion's weapons might work. It is subjective but I feel like I have seen a lot of rifle based trick shooting and although I have seen westerns with things that are not revolvers that is definitively iconic. Also Crisis has two actions? I don't know exactly how they are implemented but overwatch sounds like it could replace delay for Tin Star (and suppress seems more inline with Crisis generally). Do with that thought what you will.

Yeah those are the are the actionable ideas I have. For the sources of the schools/katas and any thematic thoughts I have on them:

All Sword Schools: Path of War - I mean I never actually used it so maybe not but that is the impression I got.
Clay Pigeon: Target Shooting - Clay pigeons are the things you shoot at right? So accuracy and various cool tricks. Some of the higher level abilities don't really match that, but I suppose you have to get out of the firing range eventually.
Crisis Zone: Big Guns as Strategic Tools - Yeah the name suggests sending people in to some situation but (peaking at the implementation) it seems to be personifying a machine gun emplacement. Still does that part quite well.*
Elemental Gearbolt: Modified/Improvised Weapons? - This seems to be about big powerful individual shoots but I'm not sure where that is coming from thematically because I'm pretty sure you aren't live modifying the weapons. Is this bullet alchemy?
Point Blank: Guns in Close Quarters - Lots of places have portrayed that as a good idea but I have no particular source for it. Still effectively using guns in close quarters lends itself to being turned into abilities. Can you parry with a gun?
Silent Scope: Snipers - It is about shooting accurately and not being noticed (at least until it is too late). I'm not sure what to say about it.
Tin Star: Westerns Definitely - Not sure how to turn that into abilities other than quick draw. Other than that it overlaps with clay pigeon a lot; individual shots fired accurately.

* I would enjoy splitting off... Tactical Surge Gun Kata that is movement and shooting based off of what I thought that was going to be but I don't know enough about this game to do that.

[lightningcat]

Yeah I think switching Tin Star and Clay Pigion's weapons might work. It is subjective but I feel like I have seen a lot of rifle based trick shooting and although I have seen westerns with things that are not revolvers that is definitively iconic. Also Crisis has two actions? I don't know exactly how they are implemented but overwatch sounds like it could replace delay for Tin Star (and suppress seems more inline with Crisis generally). Do with that thought what you will.

Yeah those are the are the actionable ideas I have. For the sources of the schools/katas and any thematic thoughts I have on them:

All Sword Schools: Path of War - I mean I never actually used it so maybe not but that is the impression I got.
Clay Pigeon: Target Shooting - Clay pigeons are the things you shoot at right? So accuracy and various cool tricks. Some of the higher level abilities don't really match that, but I suppose you have to get out of the firing range eventually.
Crisis Zone: Big Guns as Strategic Tools - Yeah the name suggests sending people in to some situation but (peaking at the implementation) it seems to be personifying a machine gun emplacement. Still does that part quite well.*
Elemental Gearbolt: Modified/Improvised Weapons? - This seems to be about big powerful individual shoots but I'm not sure where that is coming from thematically because I'm pretty sure you aren't live modifying the weapons. Is this bullet alchemy?
Point Blank: Guns in Close Quarters - Lots of places have portrayed that as a good idea but I have no particular source for it. Still effectively using guns in close quarters lends itself to being turned into abilities. Can you parry with a gun?
Silent Scope: Snipers - It is about shooting accurately and not being noticed (at least until it is too late). I'm not sure what to say about it.
Tin Star: Westerns Definitely - Not sure how to turn that into abilities other than quick draw. Other than that it overlaps with clay pigeon a lot; individual shots fired accurately.

* I would enjoy splitting off... Tactical Surge Gun Kata that is movement and shooting based off of what I thought that was going to be but I don't know enough about this game to do that.

The Sword Schools are directly taken from the Path of War predecessor, The Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. Possibly the most over titled book in D&D history. I think WotC was thinking of doing a series of Tome of Battle books before 3.5 ended, but that did not happen.

Personally, I would use Ordinary weapons for Clay Pigeon, as those are the primary weapons used for target shooting. And yes, clay pigeons are a type of target, usually for shotguns, but I have shot them with others. But the style itself seems like it was based on the old Roy Rogers era westerns asmuch as anything else.

I believe Crisis Zone is based on characters like Blain (Jesse Ventura) from Predator. TVTropes has a page on the basic idea called Gatling Good (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GatlingGood). Although, considering the game's sources, it might be for Space Marine Terminators and Dreadnaughts. :)

Calling Elemental Gearbolt "bullet alchemy" is probably the best discription I have seen for it.

Point Blank wants to be for submachine guns, but those don't really exist in the rules. Basic weapons are the closest, and that covers a lot of other things too. I think it was aiming for somewhere between Equilibrium (https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=TLXUn_s8nM4) and the lobby scene in Matrix (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iuslUzbJEaw).

Tin Star is based on the iconic gunslinger and his pistol, so have it get the Pistol weapons.

[Telok]

Ok, lets see. I finally got back to my home computer and got to finish the spells post. Addressing this...
Right, tin star gets pistols, clay pigeon gets ordinary weapons.

Overwatch and suppressing fire are nearly the same thing. Both require setting up a kill zone and covering it with a full auto weapon. Suppressing fire sprays ammo into the area, make a DC 20 shooty check and everyone in there has to make a pinning test or stick to cover, up to 1+raises people get hit if they don't find cover immediately. There's no to-hit roll on that, just that many bullets hit people (only one hit per person). Overwatch is basically a D&D style readied action, if <thing> happens you spray the first person in the kill zone with a full auto burst or just spray the whole zone with suppressing fire.

I thought of giving crisis zone the two actions because they're both fairly specific in purpose and a bit uncommon. I put all the basic weapons in point blank because you can already use pistols in melee (the rule bit for that is a bit hidden somewhere in the equipment section if I recall correctly) and it crisis zone already had the heavies.

There isn't anything prohibiting parrying a melee attack with a firearm, but I've sort of frowned on it. I allow it but I'll roll a d10, on a 1 the weapon breaks, on a 2 it's just damaged and won't work (or it will work but I roll the boom die) until some repairs are done. Also, change the point blank 2nd level booster to "+1 character does not provoke until start of next turn ". Interestingly the pulse rifle has a little note that using it one handed only has a -1k0 penalty, generally the basic firearms have a -2k0 to use with one hand. Hmm, it's still an issue that, rule-wise, only pistols can be used in close combat.

Next for these of course would be naming everything and writing it up nicely. Stuff. The first run on the spells is done and I want to get that up.


So, lets try a little re-write of the spells. Some are fine, some are kinda trash, and others just lack needed information. I threw them all, in an abbreviated format, into a spreadsheet so that I could try to compare spells within levels and across the schools. I ended up moving some spells up or down a level, adding or changing bits of some, and just wholesale replacing a few.
For abjuration it goes 1: Shield, Armoring Aura, and Endure Elements. 2: Knock, Dispel, Voidskin. 3: Mage Armor, Glyph, Ruby Ray. 4: Exploding Runes, Disjunction, Globe of Invulnerability. 5: Contingency, Wall of Force. With the main issues being the relative uselessness of endure elements, knock, and voidskin. Plus a lack of definition in ranges and wall of force.

Reworked - casting DCs are as in the book unless the spell level changed, then they are 10+(5 * level) unless specifically mentioned.
1:
* Shield - no change.
* Voidskin - expanded use into acting as a diving suit, Dune-esque still-suit, and pretty much any sort of extreme environment survival suit.
* Knock - expanded use - can magically lock a door and unlocks a magically lock door on an opposed casting check.
2:
* Armoring Aura - no change in function.
* Mage Armor - no change.
* Endure Elements - expanded use into halving damage from appropriate energy sources (fire, laser, cold, electric, etc.)
3:
* Dispel - add a 200m range limit.
* Glyph - no change.
* Exploding Runes - clarification that the spell detonates at the object it was cast on.
4:
* Ruby Ray - add a 200m range limit.
* Globe of Invulnerability - no change.
* Force Wall - clarification of 5x5m per abjuration dot plus another 5x5m per two raises & any orientation (wall, flat, angled, etc.).
5:
* Contingency - no change.
* Disjunction - add a 500m range limit and the 'no casting' by the victim is until the end of your next turn plus 1/turn per raise and it lasts until the end of the scene if you get 5 or more raises.

Conjuration goes 1: Invisible Servant, Blink, Web. 2: Lesser Servant, Call Item, Obscuring Fog. 3: Jaunt, Porte, Cloudkill. 4: Greater Servant, Teleport, Incendiary Cloud. 5: Gate, Black Blade of Disaster. The major issues here are blink being way too good for a 1st level spell, and the damaging clouds being terribly weak. It will be important to remember that overcasting and a couple other things actually cause you to have more ranks in the spell school for casting a spell.

Reworked - casting DCs are as in the book unless the spell level changed, then they are 10+(5 * level) unless specifically mentioned.
1:
* Invisible Servant - duration increased to 24 hours and the casting DC goes up by 5 for every servant you have out.
* Obscuring Cloud - 2/level 5x5x5m clouds of fog that start adjacent or around you and last 5 minutes +1 minute per raise.
* Web - clarifications, you can move half your speed as a full action with a strength+athletics check against the casting roll every round, if there are vertical/overhead anchors you can have it affect the vertical as well, it can/does block line of sight beyond 1m but won't be more than about 5cm high without a vertical/overhead anchor, casting it in the air creates a sort of dandelion puff ball of webs that fliers can evade with an arcana+dexterity save as a reaction and will drift/float downwards at half speed but collapses into a plummeting glob of 1m diameter when it hits terminal velocity, it floats on top of water and can be cast for normal effect underwater.
2:
* Blink - no changes beyond the level change upping the casting DC to 20.
* Call Item - no changes.
* Lesser Servant - no changes.
3:
* Jaunt - no changes.
* Porte - duration is 1 hour per level.
* Cloudkill - as Obscuring Fog but nasty colored, does (level+conjuration)k(level) acid (energy) damage at the beginning of the caster's turn, breathing in it requires a constitution save vs 15 or take one wound, the cloud lasts 3 minutes +1 minute per raise.
4:
* Greater Servant - no change.
* Teleport - the caster can bring along other creatures of 1 size per raise, treating equipment or cybernetics that increase resilience (but not size) as increasing size by the same amount.
* Black Blade of Disaster - the blade does +1k0 damage per raise on the casting roll, has the power balanced shocking and toxic qualities, and is reduced by aura but not by armor, the caster is automatically proficient with the blade and may use their dots in the arcana skill in place of the weaponry skill.
5:
* Gate - cast as a non combat spell it has targeting and range as the Teleport spell and the duration is 1 day per level, cast as a full action combat spell it is as the Porte spell but creates both portals at once and the duration is an hour per level.
* Incendiary Cloud - as Obscuring Fog but fiery colored and you get 5 cubes per conjuration dot, it does (level+conjuration)k(conjuration) fire (energy) damage at the start of the caster's turn and sets everything on fire (even if it can't burn and is unaffected by being on fire it is still on fire), duration is 1 minute + 1 minute per raise.

Divination goes 1: Augury, Whisper, Detect Thoughts. 2: Foresee, Luck, Arcane Eye. 3: Scry, Precognition, Legend Lore. 4: Mind Net, Unluck, Foresee. 5: Commune, Hindsight. The main problems being that several spells are weakly defined or simply uncompetitive in their level, there are two foresee spells, and hindsight is just trash for a 5th level spell.

Reworked - casting DCs are as in the book unless the spell level changed, then they are 10+(5 * level) unless specifically mentioned.
1:
* Augury - DC is still 20 but you can try once an hour, the casting DC goes up by 5 every time you do this and then reduces at the rate on 5 every 2 hours.
* Message - communication is 2-way and lasts for 1 minute/level or 1 message each way + 1 message/raise, whichever comes first.
* Read Thoughts - the duration is 1 scene.
2:
* Forsee - no change.
* Luck - no change.
* Arcane Eye - clarifications, it lasts an hour per level + 1 hour per raise, moves (flying) at 2 * (arcana+intelligence), and is invisible (but still a physical flying eyeball) with a general stealth check equal to your casting roll, and it has both size & visual acuity/abilities according to the species of eyeball used, cybernetic eyeballs are unsuitable and do not work, the eyeball is used up in casting the spell (yes there's a little ick & nuisance factor in collecting and counting really good eyeballs).
3:
* Scry - no change.
* Precognition - no change.
* Legend Lore - if you get 3 or more raises this can act as the level 5 Hindsight spell instead.
4:
* Mind Net - 100m line of sight range limit, it can affect up to your level in people with each casting, when cast on allies this lasts 24 hours, when cast on anyone else there is an arcana+wisdom save and it lasts one scene, different castings are different 'channels', the person must specifically send thoughts/images/etc. through the link, it cannot be used to eavesdrop on a person's thoughts.
* Unluck - no changes.
* Foresee - the name changes to Foresight, you may only have one of these in effect at a time, if the triggering event is combat then you cannot be surprised and automatically win initiative in addition to the usual effects.
5:
* Commune - no changes.
* New spell: True Knowledge - VSF, full action casting, DC 35, duration: one scene, any roll using a social or mental skill or attribute rolls additional +(divination)k0 dice and you count as having at least one dot in the skill or attribute. For all other rolls you may roll twice and take either roll. The focus is a very large unabridged encyclopedia, one loaded on a data slate is suggested and one linked through a communications network will suffice as long as the connection is stable, fast, completely uninterrupted, and doesn't have false information injected by a hack while the spell is in effect.

On divination and the new spell: Level 5 gives you the ability to call up Bahamut, Acerak, or The Lady of Pain for advice, or 5-8 fireballs, or any contingent spell, or turning into a dragon. There was just no way that a holographic history documentary on a specific place was in that league. I tried balancing the 5th level spells around the Meteor Storm / Commune / Resurrection / Necromutation level of power. I've tried to make spell selection a hard choice at each level.

Enchantment goes 1: Charm Person, Command, Shock and Awe. 2: Stun, Attraction, Confusion. 3: Dominate, Awe, Suggestion. 4: Encore, Blindness, Demand. 5: Geas, Amnesia. The main issues with this school are of course players & mind control, plus a lack of ranges and general weakness in several spells.

Reworked - casting DCs are as in the book unless the spell level changed, then they are 10+(5 * level) unless specifically mentioned.
On mind control: If a character fails the save against direct mind control (Command, Dominate, Geas, Suggestion, etc.) by two checks (-10 or more under the casting roll) then they absolutely have to follow the spirit of the command. If they fail to save against the spell by less than two checks they may spend a Resolve point to subvert it and obey only the letter of the command. However subversion does not include outright and intentional misunderstanding unless a Hero Point is also used. For example: A character on a cliff is Commanded to "disarm" and the caster gets a 25 on the casting check. If the victim gets a 15 or less on the saving throw the have disarm themselves of any weapons that they have. If they fail the saving throw by only 9 points, with a 16, they may spend a Resolve point to attempt to disarm the closest person to them. If the victim also spends a hero point they may attempt to disarm the caster, including trying to blow his arms off if they're fairly certain they can get that crit in one shot. If a control effect is ongoing, like Dominate, the victim must spend a Resolve/Hero point every time they wish to subvert a command.

1:
* Charm Person - no changes.
* Command - see 'On mind control' above.
* Shock and Awe - the range of the spell as 20m.
2:
* Stun - the effect is that the target is stunned as per the condition, the save is arcana+composure, once they are not stunned if they had a check on the save then they also lose an additional half action, if they had two checks then they lose two half actions, they cannot take reactions until after the stunning and loss of actions is resolved.
* Attraction - no change.
* Confusion - the range is 'hearing' which is generally about 20m talking in a quiet area, 100m shouting in a quiet area, and 20m shouting in battlefield conditions, all of those assume normal human voices and hearing (call it a DC 10 perception with an additional +10 per doubling of the distance, also applicable is DC 5 at 15m and +10 per doubling).
3:
* Dominate - see 'On mind control' above, when situations calling for the saving throw adjustments come up you re-roll the save with the adjustment added in.
* Awe - the effect and save are the same as Stun, otherwise unchanged (range, area, etc.).
* Blindness - the name changes to Blindness/Deafness, components are VS, range is 20m, it inflicts blindness or deafness for 24 hours, both if the victim gets 2 or more checks on the saving throw.
4:
* Encore - range is 20m, the effect is not 'expended'.
* Suggestion - range is 'hearing'.
* Demand - the range is 20m, the caster may maintain the spell with a half action every round that they use to talk to the target, the target must expend another Resolve each round that the spell is maintained.
5:
* Geas - see 'On mind control', the command can be a short sentence or have modifiers instead of just being a single word, "Protect me from your allies if they appear" is allowable.
* Amnesia - optional: change the name to Mind Rape, if the target gets a check on their save the caster can rewrite minor aspects of their personality, if they get two checks on the save the caster can rewrite their alignment, if there are three checks on the save the changes cannot be undone without another Amnesia spell that has a higher casting roll, as an alternate use the caster can add or remove traumatic events, the caster can add traumatic events causing 1d5 +1/raise insanity up to their own insanity, the caster can remove 1d5 +1/raise insanity as long as the target's insanity is higher than the caster's - in this case the save that the target makes is to allow the editing to have the desired effect, a fails saving throw will not allow the caster to reduce insanity.

Evocation goes 1: Magic Missile, Energy Burst, Battering Ram. 2: Energy Grasp, Energy Ray, Defenestration. 3: Energy Ball, Energy Aura, Energy Prismatic Ray. 4: Energy Wall, Energy Bits, Lightning Ring. 5: Energy Meteors, "Go-Bugger-Yourself"... I mean Reality Maelstrom. Problems here are low damage for a few spells and of course that spell.

Reworked - casting DCs are as in the book unless the spell level changed, then they are 10+(5 * level) unless specifically mentioned.
1:
* Magic Missile - the maximum number of duplicates is the number of ranks the caster has in evocation.
* Energy Burst - no change.
* Battering Ram - the push distance is 2m +2m/check on the save, it explicitly can move the target any direction but without enough force to cause impact damage on its own.
2:
* Energy Grasp - charges up your hand/limb to be used before the end of your next turn.
* Energy Ray - no changes.
* Defenestration - no changes.
3:
* Energy Ball - no changes.
* Energy Aura - damage is increased to 3k1 +3/level, and recall that it's resisted by aura instead of armor.
* Lightning Ring - the casting DC is 25 and the caster may use arcana+dexterity for the shooting part of the spell.
4:
* Energy Wall - shapeable wall 5m high by 10m + 5m/raise long, damage increases to 4k2 +3/level, it offers +10 static defence / -10 perception from concealment & distortions.
* Energy Bits - you can launch a maximum number of bits equal to your level but and remove the '2 per target' restriction.
* New spell: Telekinesis - VS, half action cast & reaction to maintain, 60m range, everything within a 10m radius of the point of origin saves arcana+size or is pushed in any direction by 4m + 4m/check on the save, if it is pushed more than 60m from the point of origin it is freed from the effect until it returns to within 60m, the spell lasts a minimum number of rounds equal to the caster's level or as long as they maintain the spell, the caster may change the direction of the spell as a half action, pulling people up and then pushing them down adds 1k1 damage per 4m of "speed" to the falling damage, the spell automatically overcomes and negates the local gravity field when pushing people up (don't bother trying to deal with falling vs. pushing, just push them up).
5:
* Energy Meteors - no change.
* Reality Maelstrom - range is 50m, everyone within a 20m radius of the point of origin rolls on the Psychic Phenomena / Perils of the Warp tables with a +5/raise on the casting roll plus make another roll on the tables at no bonus and apply it to everyone and everything in the area, or you can summon a warp vortex at the point of origin, it then begins to move randomly at 2 to 20 meters per round, dealing 10k7 magic energy damage to all in its path (Dodge v 35 to evade). The vortex lasts for 1d10+5 rounds and then vanishes.

Yeah, I dropped prismatic ray. It was just so random and competed with other decent spells. The telekinesis spell can be reverse gravity, mass levitate/feather fall, or a sort of pushing force barrier. If you want to try launching arrows with it you can do your own math (but of you do, post it, and I'll include it in the spell).

Healing goes 1: Cure Light Wounds, Boon, Shield Other. 2: Regeneration, Boost, Death Ward. 3: Cure Moderate Wounds, Rebuke, Atonement. 4: Consecrate, Holy Weapon, Heal. 5: Resurrection, Divine Power.

Reworked - casting DCs are as in the book unless the spell level changed, then they are 10+(5 * level) unless specifically mentioned.
1:
* Cure Light Wounds - spend one resource point and make the casting roll to heal 1+1/2 raises hit points.
* Boon - allies get a rolled die plus another rolled die per two raises on the casting roll that they can add to any check using a skill within the next minute, as with the Luck spell the ally can spend any number of dice up to their level on any one roll. Expended dice are not reusable.
* Shield Other - no change.
2: No changes - Regeneration, Boost, Death Ward.
3:
* Cure Moderate Wounds - spend a number of resource points up to your level and make the casting roll to heal that many wounds, plus 1 wound and 1 fatigue per 2 raises on the casting roll.
* Rebuke - the target saves with Devotion vs. the casting roll or lose one hero point, they also take 1d10 wounds -1 wound per raise on the saving throw and +1 wound per check on the saving throw.
* Holy Weapon - the additional damage applies to people who worship gods other than yours, the enchantment lasts 24 hours.
4:
* Consecrate - clarification that is affects all of the caster's allies and applies to damage rolls, "all rolls" means all.
* Heal - spend any number of resource points and make the casting roll to heal wounds equal to the resource points spent plus 1d5 wounds and fatigue per raise on the casting roll, you can forgo the additional healing and remove one disease, poison, toxic/drug effect, or one level of addiction per raise on the casting roll.
* Atonement - as an alternate use change the casting time to a week worth of rituals and the DC to the target's insanity score in order to remove 1 point of insanity.
5:
* Resurrection - clarification that you need most of the body mostly intact and there is a time limit of days equal to the combined devotion of the caster and the target after which the resurrection will not work.
* Divine Power - you gain +2 size, +2 strength, +4 static defence, +1 resilience, 1 HP of regeneration, aura equal to your ranks in Healing, and +1 reaction every turn. You only have to make the alignment check if something happens to the focus holy symbol and the spell ends early. Note: the +2 size equals another +1 resilience and the +4 static defence offsets the size penalty, this keeps you from having to recalculate anything.

Illusion goes 1: Image, Disguise, Blur. 2: Invisibility, Ghost Sounds, Illusionary Script. 3: Silence, Mirror Image, Dream. 4: Improved Invisibility, Programmed Image, Mislead. 5: Permanent Image, Screen. The main issue being how vague some of the advanced images are and the fact that they all inherit from the level 1 base image spell thus inheriting serious, nearly crippling, limits. Plus a couple spells are just crap.

1:
* Image - full action casting, half or full action to maintain concentration, functionally a real looking static hologram, you can animate the image and move it 10m with a full action maintain concentration.
* Disguise - no changes.
* Blur - +4 static defence and another +2/raise on the casting roll.
2:
* Invisibility - no changes.
* Ghost Sounds - reaction to maintain concentration, you can change the sounds and move the origin point 10m when you maintain concentration.
* Illusionary Script - change the name to Illusionary Object - SM, creates a single seemingly solid object that is apparently real to all senses. A book, a gun, a shoe, a corpse. Things with senses will treat the object as real, it appears on live video feeds, robots treat it as real, etc. Things without senses don't care and you can't fool the physical laws of the universe, bullets will fall through an illusionary gun if you try to load them, you can't set things down on a illusionary table, illusionary parachutes don't help, etc. It takes as long to cast the spell as it takes to paint, color, of draw in the object. Minutes for a basic hand held item, a book that can't be opened, or a simple desk. Hours for a large or complicated item, a corpse with wounds, a motorcycle, an ornate filigree jewellery box. The casting must be uninterrupted, test constitution vs. 10+hours every hour after the fourth hour of casting, failure ends the casting (the illusion may be left partially complete). Close examination of the object may reveal the illusionary nature of it, use the appropriate skill+wisdom or arcana+wisdom versus the lowest of the casting roll and a craft+intelligence check. If the item took more than 4 hours to complete make a number of crafting checks equal to the number of constitution checks and use the lowest one. Impossible physical interactions will reveal the illusionary nature instantly, such as being pushed through an illusion of a wall. Using an illusionary item to harm someone reveals it as an illusion but does deal one level of fatigue of it would have done at least two wounds. Once the illusion is created it will last for as long as someone perceives it. Undead, golems, and robots are useful for maximizing the duration of the illusion.
3:
* Silence - no changes.
* Mirror Image - no changes.
* New spell: Improved Image - S, full action to cast, half action to maintain concentration, range 10m, similar to Image but with an area 5x5x5 meters and has sound up to and including speech, can be animated and moved up to 20m/round within 200m of the caster during the half action concentration. It lasts until the caster fails to concentrate on it during their turn.
4:
* Improved Invisibility - no changes.
* Programmed Image - the image is within an area of, and/or up to a size of, 7x7x7 meters with an additional 2x2x2 meters per raise on the casting roll. It appears animated if the caster wishes it to be so, and includes sounds up to and including speech. The number of programmed activities is unchanged.
* Mislead - the caster may use a reaction to have the illusion move, react, or speak, as though it was them. The duplicate exists in all senses and is possessed of mild animation and programming sufficient to fool all but close and detailed examination. The spell lasts for one round per level of the caster or until the caster does not maintain concentration for an entire round, whichever is longer.
5:
* Permanent Image - the effect of the spell is as Improved Image (adding the senses of touch, scent, and taste) with an area of up to 10x10x10 meters plus 5x5x5 meters per raise on the casting roll. If the caster ceases concentration it simply becomes inactive and fades out or stops being animated until the next time the caster spends a half action concentrating on it, the caster chooses either the fade or the pause when the decide to stop concentrating.
* New Spell: Weird - S, full action casting, reaction to maintain concentration, range 200m. Terrible hallucinations, tremendous noise, alternating flashing light and darkness, offensive scents, and disturbing tactile sensations fill an area 20m in radius around the point of origin. Everyone within saves arcana+composure. On success they have to make a fear 3 test (DC 25) at +5 per raise on the save, visibility is reduced to 5m, it is nearly impossible to make out any sound quieter than a large jet engine, the results of all perception checks are halved, and all checks are made at -5. On failure the victim rolls on the shock table at +2 per check on the save, is considered blind and deaf while in the area of effect, is still deafened for 15 minutes afterwards, and all checks are made at -10. The fear result on a successful save is considered mind affecting. The light and noise carry a fair bit, everyone within at least 2 km and perhaps as far as 5 km will be able to see and hear this. This spell lasts 1d5 rounds after the caster ceases concentrating on it.

Necromancy goes 1: Flush Of Life, Rot, False Life. 2: Speak With Dead, Draining Touch, Burning Blood. 3: Torment, Raise Dead, Horrid Wilting. 4: Corrupted Earth, Consume Soul, Avasculate. 5: Necromutation, Zombie Plague. Our issues here are some unaddressed questions as to how a few spells work, a couple trash spells, and the general worthlessness of zombies.

1:
* Flush of Life - this is a full and effective disguise plus the ability to convincingly fake any necessary biological functions. It takes a medicae+intelligence check of 15 + the casting roll plus some form of deep scan or dissection to discern the truth. The spell lasts for a scene or one hour per level plus one hour per raise on the casting roll, whichever is greater.
* Rot - no changes.
* False Life - no changes.
2:
* Speak With Dead - once a day, for one scene, the corpse will answer one question plus an additional question per raise on the casting roll. The corpse must be sufficiently intact to communicate, a loose head will require lip reading or some sort of tracheal air pumping.
* Draining Touch - the damage increases to 2k2 plus another 1k0 per raise on the casting roll. The spell lasts until the end of your next turn or until you use it to make an attack, whichever comes first.
* Burning Blood - the range is 10m per level of the caster, the attack roll is replaced by an arcana+constitution save, bloodless creatures (some undead, robots, most promethians) are unaffected.
3:
* Torment - no changes.
* Animate Dead - suggest that zombies in numbers of more than 3 or 4 be organized into threat 2 & damage 2 minion squads. These undead respond to verbal commands from their creator (in person, no recordings) up to two or three basic sentences in length or (usually reliably) up to two simple if-then statements. New instructions completely replace old instructions.
* Horrid Wilting - no change.
4:
* Corrupted Earth - changes to be the same as the Consecrate spell in Healing, except that it affects everyone who is not the caster's ally and inflicts a -1k0 on all rolls.
* Consume Soul - Zombie Plague & suggest that zombies in numbers of more than 3 or 4 be organized into threat 2 & damage 2 minion squads. They are commanded like the level 3 Animate Dead but will only remember instructions for days equal to the caster's necromancy dots, then they go feral and start shambling around looking for things to kill. Their creator can re-command them in person at any time.
* Avasculate - no changes.
5:
* Necromutation - the duration of the immunity to damage is 1d5 rounds plus your dots in necromancy plus 1 round per raise on the casting roll. And for the rest of the scene you can use the effect of the Draining Touch spell at the 2k2 damage, up to once per round and you regain one resource point whenever you deal at least one wound this way.
* New Spell: Create Greater Undead - non-combat, VSM, full action casting, touch range, create an improved version of a skeleton or zombie from a corpse. The new undead loses any ability to cast spells, possess or use resource or hero points, naturally heal or regenerate, and any purely biological functions like reproduction and producing venom. It also loses all ranged weapon proficiencies, all non-combat & non-armor feats, and it's scores in charisma, fellowship, composure, and intelligence. It's dexterity score is reduced by 1 dot. It gains the mindless & undead & unnatural toughness traits, it's level as bonus dots in strength, a 1k1 brawling rending attack, and 2 dots or +1 dot in the brawling skill whichever results in a higher brawling skill. It's perception skill becomes 2. It keeps it's weaponry & ballistics skills, and it's armor proficiencies. For every number of raises on the casting of the spell equal to the level or the creature (i.e.: 3 raises for a level 3 creature being animated) you may add +1 to your choice of strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, or willpower. If the new undead has an intelligence score it loses the mindless trait and gains the dark sight trait. Intelligent undead can only be commanded with a command + charisma check against their willpower, in person, by their creator. But social combat will work on intelligent undead. Intelligent undead are not fearless unless the base species is naturally fearless, the Fearless feat is one of the non-combat feats lost in the conversion top unlife.

So we're ditching consume soul as a PC-type adventuring spell that's on the default list. It was a freaking plot device any ways, just call it a L4 ritual that anyone can do on an forbidden lore+intelligence & arcana+casting stat vs. something roll. Animate dead got a clearer definition of C&C, and a way to get better undead minions/enemies.

Transmutation goes 1: Swift Change, Treesong, Bloodwind. 2: Dedication, Animal Power, Enlarge Person. 3: Magic Fang, Polymorph, Stone Tell. 4: Primal Power, Earthsong, Control Weather. 5: Dragon Form, Iron Body. The work here is to boost trash spells and put clearer bounds on some of the others.

1:
* Swift Change - no changes.
* Treesong - wood & living plants as if they were sculpting clay. 1 cubic meter + 1/raise. Permanent effect, use craft checks for moving parts/complex forms (suggest 20 for a mechanical clock?).
* Bloodwind - no changes.
2:
* Dedication - no changes.
* Animal Power - no changes.
* Enlarge person - replace with Magic Fang.
3:
* Magic Fang - replace with Enlarge/Shrink Person. It's two different spells, you learn one or the other. The target gets +/- 2 size +/- 2 size per 2 raises. This is to make things easier, each increase of 2 size a +1 resilience & -4 static defence, reverse the +/- for shrinking. The minimum size is 1 and the maximum is 4+ (2x transmutation dots).
* Polymorph - the wolf form also adds the quadruped quality from the Antagonists chapter (doubles land speed). The subject can explicitly change back and forth and the ability works rather like the werewolf power. The spell may be cast on unwilling subjects, in that case they get the opportunity attack for your casting within melee reach, you have to land a brawling attack, and they get an arcana+constitution saving throw. With their failure of the saving throw they are locked into that form for the rest of the scene unless they also have some form of shape-shifting (a casting of Swift Change will suffice even if the victim has no other alternate forms). Also a suggestion to allow the caster to learn a form per rank in transmutation, changing the size by +/-1, one attribute by +2, gaining keen senses in one sense, and choosing one of the movement qualities form the Antagonists chapter.
* Stone Tell - ditch it. New spell: Call Forth Spirit: The spell changes local materials or animals/insects/etc. into a material shell that envelops a friendly local spirit. Full action casting, reaction or half action to maintain concentration, F & VSM, the focus is some small representation of the shell OR the spirit (a clay figure for an earth elemental, bucket of water, jar of a noble gas, lit blowtorch, totems, bones, vodun paraphernalia etc.), you get an elemental form the Antagonists chapter OR a spirit that is functionally a ghost which will possess plants or animals & act through them. The being is generally helpful but the caster must spend a half action instead of a reaction on maintaining concentration on the spell in order to get the being to fight for you. It can communicate with at least the caster if not everyone present, and may be engaged in social combat. The spell lasts until the caster stops maintaining it.
4:
* Primal Power - no changes.
* Earthsong - as per Treesong but it also affects earth, stone, pure metals, shell/chitin, bone (not in a living creature), leather (not skin), and wood. It will not affect plastics or alloys.
* Control Weather - the 'area' centres on and radiates out from the point of spell casting and reaches to the horizon. It will last for the greater of one day or as long as such weather would normally last in that area.
5:
* Dragon Form - You'll want to work out your dragon stats ahead of time and write them down. The stat changes are +4 size, +3 strength, +2 constitution, +1 charisma, -1 dexterity, -2 fellowship (the side effects of these changes are: -11 static defence, +2 resilience, +2 HP, +2 speed). Gain the Iron Jaw feat if you didn't already have it. Gain 8 armor that doesn't stack with anything, the 2k2 claw & bite attacks, the breath as a flamer weapon attack, the x2 flying speed, and the ability to see in the dark if you didn't already have it.
* Iron Body - ditch it, two transforms at this level is excessive and this one was trash. New Spell: Primal Anumus - non-combat, one hour casting, VSM, 'touch' range, you transform local materials into a loyal elemental. Use the ones form the book, give them a +1 dot in any attribute per raise, for every three raises increase size by one point, for every six raises increase their threat level and skills by one. You can only have a number of loyal & dependable elementals equal to the sum of your social attributes at any one time. They do communicate and you can use social combat on them. If there are enough of them (more than 15 or so) they may unionise and agitate for better conditions, it's apparently something inherent in being an elemental spirit.

Tightened up and put in more guidance for a few spells and just replaced the two bad trash spells. Do note that Call Forth Spirit can be used as Stone Tell and now you know it's perception and intelligence levels.

[Telok]

Holy criminy, I think I found the fix to most of the space issues. Nearly everything starts to work out if you just limit it to assigning a max of 10 crew to stuff. The biggest issue was the ability of big ships to throw like 20 crew on a check and crush it.

[lightningcat]

I think I would limit it to half the max crew instead of just 10. It restricts the little ships, but they have less space for lots of people to be working on the same thing. While only the biggest ships can break that 10 limit. The Bismark, Belle, and Bounty are the only default ships with more than 20 crew. While the Steamboat would be limited to 6 crew per action, with everyone else in between.

[Telok]

I think I would limit it to half the max crew instead of just 10. It restricts the little ships, but they have less space for lots of people to be working on the same thing. While only the biggest ships can break that 10 limit. The Bismark, Belle, and Bounty are the only default ships with more than 20 crew. While the Steamboat would be limited to 6 crew per action, with everyone else in between.

While that would also be a simple and appropriate fix it causes issues if you start going bigger or smaller than the default ships. I ended up, for my home game, writing up a crew 8 fast courier, a crew 30 ancient syrne wreck, and a 36? crew modron "borg cube/death star thing". The half crew version really harshes the small ship and still doesn't completely cover the big ones.

Keep in mind that, by the book, the crews top out about 1200 bodies. The US Iowa class battleships ran 2700 down to 1800 with a 1980s automation upgrade. Plus I tend to stat space stations & planetary defense fortresses as multiple immobile ships. Those wouldn't have the same sort of crew limits as they are all one "place".

Also, never underestimate the capabilities of the characters (the players are another story). Mine managed to salvage and fix up that 30 crew ship. Mind they loosed 5 or more things that can/will destroy all civilization, and or life, in the universe while doing so. But they did salvage that sucker even though they got banned form Sigil, did shadow apocalypses on two planets, released a demigod level daemon lord, released Athasian defiling and the big bad of Athas into the universe, gave clockwork horrors spelljamming tech, and gave the aboleth/illithid civilization the shadow apocalypse weapon.

The half crew limit certainly works for the ships from the book. But anyone running the game is going to be doing lots of homebrew. I think the 10 limit works better beyond the 12-24 range in the books, although I am still open to other considerations.

[lightningcat]

Alas, my game never made it past character creation, so I never kicked into homebrewing mode for the game, and thus only have the books for examples. While you have the actual experience, but I will still try help you solve these problems. But in this case there is only the hard cap, or a sliding scale. The only other option is to cap off the sliding scale, but that seems overly gamey.

Although, if you go with a cap of 10, you might be able to increase (or even decrease) that cap using build points. But otherwise, your cap might just be the best, and simplist solution.

[Telok]

Hey, no worries. Honestly it felt like back when the D&Ds 3 & 4 came out, running into bumps partially because we didn't have a great grasp of the rules and not always knowing if the issue was the system or us. Even after playing that much it still took this read for me to pick up on some issues and figure out what was caused be my rulings or by the base rules.

At this point I'm just going to try to get stuff written up and posted so it's easier to find than pieces of paper or loose text files.

I think possibly the best thing, short of playing, is to build a few characters, vehicles, ships, and run some scenarios. That said, my take on vehicle add-on rules/options:
Vehicle rules: As previously discussed increased crashing damage & getting some crash avoidance stuff in.

Vehicle, & in general, static defense cannot go negative. The game just seems to work a little better that way.

Vehicles don't have to have a movement system. These are good for things like gun emplacements, shield generators, etc. They don't have to pay for acceleration, speed, or maneuverability.

Vehicle movement: In chase/vehicle only situations you can consider the movement to be simultaneous if it makes sense. Just move/check distance for everyone at the start or end of the round. Alternately you can do 1/2 movement at the start/end of the round and the other half on the pilot/driver maintain control action.

For people/vehicle interactions it's usually ok for the vehicle to move on the pilot's turn. If there is the possibility that you could swap pilots or share piloting (copilot, remote control) then give the vehicle its own initative score, set to the original pilot's initative. The vehicle initative will change only when the vehicle is at momentum 0 at the end of a round. At that point the vehicle will take as it's new initative the initative of whomever takes the controls first. The vehicle moves on it's initative (or with the pilot if it is equal), using the pilot's most recent maintain control or maneuver action. If the pilot and vehicle are not sharing the same initative and something happens due to the vehicle's movement that warrants a control test the pilot (or copilot, or someone, ANYONE, within reach of the controls) needs to spend their reaction to make the test. Failure to do so has the same effect as rolling zero for the control test, that is, it fails by the largest margin possible.

Optional movement: You can have all vehicles move half their movement at the start/end of the round and complete the other half of their movement (if any) during the pilot's turn. Another possibility is to have the vehicle move 1/3 it's movement at the start/end of the round, then 1/3 at the start of the pilot's turn, then 1/3 at the end of the pilot's turn. Another possibility is to have the pilot decide at the beginning of the scene (or whenever they start the vehicle moving up from momentum 0) if they are going to take their control action as their first or last action on their turn. That decision will then be locked in and that is when the vehicle will move.

I think my preference wil be that the vehicle takes the initial pilot's initative and moves half at the beginning of that turn, then half again when the control action is taken (or at the end of the turn if no control action was taken). For vehicles going over momentum 7 or more than half the current map each turn, the movement is split in thirds; one at the start/end of the round, one on the pilot's control action or the start of the vehicle's turn if no control is happening, and one at the end of the vehicle's turn.

Controls: All vehicles need some form of control. Ok, that's technically not true, but for our purposes you need a control setup if you want to bloody well do anything with it. Control options are internal, external, remote, or autonomous.

Internal: You have to have the cockpit module. Look, you can 1 slot & 20 vp it, this is where the pilot goes. The coffin and mobile trace modules can be part of the cockpit. You can add up all your sizes and costs for the cockpit before micronizing/macronizing them or keep them separate, the basic equipment package cannot be macro/micro and is not considered in these calculations. Note that without the basic equipment package there are no environmental controls, no radios/comms, the windows don't roll down, no seat belts, no headlights, no emergency interior lighting, and especially no cup holders. It's like a WWI biplane with a sealed cockpit. Just suck it up and pay the 3 vp unless you're statting out a WWI biplane or something.

External: If you chose not to have cockpit then the controls are on the outside of the vehicle, sort of like the walk-behind forklifts. The vehicle is automatically open topped, at least for the pilot. You have to choose one of the alternate control systems, or the coffin system to use this option.

Remote: It comes with a control setup that's 1/10th the size of the vehicle, rounded down. This means that size 10+ vehicles need to have another "vehicle" as the remote location. If the controls are just a set of free standing control consoles then it's basically like a bunch of arcade game machines and about as easily transported. You can build them into another vehicle without paying any increased costs, they just use up slots. Jamming will screw you over.

Autonomous: The beserker system turns a vehicle into a killer robot. It is suggested to also install a remote control system so that you can turn the bugger off without haivng to blow it up. As a 'feature' you can add a perception filter to the beserker system, this removes things from the ability of the beserker to sense them. Normally this is a biometric full body scan combined with a uniform overlay option. That prevents the system from sensing normal people in a particular uniform. You can replace the uniform with any sort of widely visible/sensable badge or marker. Beware though, the system will need to match both the body scan and the badge. If you only have a visible badge on the front the beserker will shoot you from behind. Other options include just specific badges, unforms, IFF transponders, or even things like colors and temperature ranges. Note that the beserker system will literally not perceive these things and may try to shoot through/past them. They don't even register as terrain, just a sort of blank spot moving around.

The other autonomous system is the AIs. These can normally ony use a single half action on any turn, up to the rating of their RAM array (max 5). To get two half actions each turn you need two AIs each spending their own actions, to get a full action both AIs have to be identical and each spends one of their half actions. There is, technically, no limit to the number of AIs acting at once. But each AI has to use a different vehicle system and only one of them can be making control tests during the vehicle's turn. You can chain AIs if you want to have more than 5 actions available in a scene, get a "feature" of AI linking and each AI has to act after the previous one has used up it's actions. These secondary AIs are half cost and half size but none of their abilities can exceed the primary AI's abilities. Bundle the secondary AIs into one "item" to apply the halved size and cost. Linked AIs have to be microed/macroed at their combined values.

The basic function of AIs is to aid (+5) one roll each round. With multiple AIs they cannot aid another AI if they are spending actions, any test by the pilot and/or copilot(s) can only be aided by a maximum of 2 AIs, and any other test can only be aided by one AI at a time. With linked AIs only the currently active one can aid rolls, the others are inactive.

If you have 2 sets of identical linked identical AIs of at least size 4 and with at least rounds of 12 actions that, with all the AIs added up, combine to take up more than half of the size and cost of the vehicle... Just run it as a robot vehicle with the normal set of actions available. But keep the spreadsheet handy for when upgrade time comes around. If it falls below half the size and cost of the vehicle then it can't maintain the smooth operational flow and defaults back to being just a set of helpers.

Vehicle upgrades & trade-ins: You know they'll ask. The formula for buying new parts is 15+(vp/10), a 100vp part is a 25 wealth test. That's quite doable with a character that intends to follow this path. They have to keep their build spreadsheet handy. It represents the user manuals and blueprints that you need to successfully modify customized vehicles. Once the vehicle makes it into holdings territory (250vp or more) they need to have the appropriate background resources to take care of it. Otherwise they'll need to make both tech & craft checks of DC (vp/10)+(5 per previous successful check) to keep it running. Every time they fail add another flaw to the vehicle. If there are no more flaws to add, one of them gets worse. Each of these 'wear and tear' flaws can only be removed by gaining the appropriate backgrounds or making a pair of tech & craft checks at double the maintainence difficulty.

Ok, so they can handle the maintainence issues. What about trade-ins. Any vehicle or part is only worth 1/10th of it's vp (used, funky smell, blood stains, could have been stolen, etc.), maybe 1/5th if they work hard at finding the perfect deal. Subtract that from the vp of the thing they're buying before calculating the DC of the wealth test to buy the new part or vehicle. Of course that only works for trading in one item, if they want to trade in more stuff keep cutting the vp the parts are worth in half for each one. Mind, if they're something like the generals of a planetary military force with 10 million troops they should just requsition a battleship or whatever they need. This is mostly for murder-hobos trying to buy a tank from a shady arms dealer. And, frankly, if they're trying to get 20+ passenger cars to offset the cost of a double miniatureized wave motion cannon... Just sit them down, have a talk about their life goals, and blow up the city or something. They're supposed to be heroes, not smarmy used car hucksters. There's nothing better than a massive world-wide daemon invasion to get people up and moving.

[Telok]

Not dead. Got a spreadsheet with the rebalanced vehicle and spaceship weapons.

Discovered something interesting. When adding another rolled die to a check: If the kept dice are 1 or 2 each added rolled die is an average of +1 on the result. If the kept dice are 3 to 5 each added rolled die averages +2. At 6 kept additional rolled are +3, and for 7 to 9 kept they are +4. For all values of rolled dice adding another kept die is an average of +4. Works best in the 3 to 8 rolled/kept die ranges but didn't go off by more than 5 on the low end and 10 on the high end. Shifts of up to 5 dice at a time worked well, more than that started going off target but still mostly by less than 10. If changing both rolled and kept at the same time do the kept dice changes first and then do the rolled dice change based on the new number of kept dice. 4k3 -> 5k2 : ~22 -4+1=18, chart says ~18. 4k4 -> 9k4 : about 23 -> about 36 by chart, 23+10=33, off by 3. Allows you to guess about how useful adding/losing dice can be.

[Telok]

Vehicle weapons systems.
* Ammo: Option & experimental ammo rules

Personal weapons use their regular ammo amounts. They can either be reloaded from inside the vehicle or they can have 3x the normal clip size. Reloading involves down-time or just hauling in more ammo by hand.

Ballistic weapons can fire a number of times equal to double the size of the vehicle minus the size of the weapon. For weapons capable of both burst fire and single shots multiply that by the rate of fire to determine the actual number of individual rounds. Reloading requires down-time for any weapon with more than a +10 to it's damage rating, the smaller calibres can be reloaded in the field if sufficient supplies are available. You won't be able to load more than a couple rounds each minute any ways.

Missile weapons can fire once per size of the vehicle, except the Arrow-4 system that has half that much ammunition. Only SRM missiles can be reloaded in the field, all others require restocking at base. The SRMs can, assuming there are stray missiles laying around, be reloaded by hand at a rate of about one a minute.

Energy weapons use a combined pool of "ammunition" generated by the vehicle's power plant/engine. They can fire a number of times equal to the size of the vehicle plus the size of the vehicle multiplied by the number of slots spent on speed (don't bother fooling around with burst vs. single shot, it's too much trouble, each burst is a "shot"). This does mean that a sufficiently large XL engine can supply effectively unlimited ammunition. Once this store of energy is used up the vehicle requires either refuelling or some down-time to re-energize. Refuelling normally takes about the size of the vehicle in minutes.

* Homing: The missing weapon property for missiles is most easily adjudicated as follows - Reduce the RoF of the launcher to 1, the weapon is counted as being both accurate AND having been aimed as a full action. Active ECM or stealth will reduce the aim bonus to that of a half action. Active ECM AND stealth defeats the homing property. In addition, as long as there is no active ECM the missiles take no penalties for long range, one third of the penalty for extreme range, and the extreme range penalty beyond that. Homing weapons can be fired past extreme range, up to 40x the base range. Beyond extreme range they require an additional combat round to travel to their target for every "extreme range" distance they have to cover, and they need to make another attack roll (use the same rolled & kept but adjust for range as necessary).

By the numbers: Full round aim is +2k0, half action aim is +1k0, accurate adds +1k0 to aimed shots, long range is -5 to hit, extreme range is -15 to hit.

Example: A homing Arrow 4 missile has a 500m base range, it cannot fire at targets closer than 250m. From 250m to 1000m it adds +3k0 to attack, +2k0 if ECM or stealth are being employed by the target, and no bonus of both ECM and stealth are employed by the target. From 1000m to 2000m it takes a -5 penalty to the attack roll unless both ECM and stealth are being used by the target, in which case the penalty is -15. From 2000m to 20,000m the missile can be launched only if the target is not using both ECM and stealth. At 20,000m it would take the missile 9 rounds of attack rolls at the -15 extreme range penalty, and one final attack roll at the reduced -5 extreme range penalty.

Note: It is understood that these ranges do not accurately reflect real-world long range and cruise missiles. If you want greater accuracy you can go fond the appropriate GURPS supplement and do the conversions yourself.

* Turrets: Optional & experimental rules

Each weapon attached to a vehicle has an "arc" of fire. These are pretty general, forward, backward, left side, right side, above, below. Any weapon noted as being mounted on an arm (for vehicles that have arms) is not restricted to firing in an arc. A narrow turret can be added to the weapon that extends it's range of fire into any two adjacent arcs (ex: forward, left, and above) for a cost of 1 slot and 5 vp. A wide turret can be added that extends the range of fire of the weapon into all but one arc (ex: everywhere except below the vehicle) for a cost of 2 slots and 10 vp.

* Vehicle Armor: New costs
Hardened: Heavy(20) = 4s & 50vp, Medium(10) = 2s & 24vp, Light(5) = 1s & 16vp.
Ferro: Heavy(20) = 8s & 25vp, Medium(10) = 6s & 6vp, Light(5) = 3s & 4vp.
Standard: Medium(10) = 4s & 12vp, Light(5) = 2s & 8vp, Thick Paint(2) = 1s & 2vp.

This means there isn't a 'best' armor when you're micronizing. In this system armor 5 costs 1s & 16vp, armor 10 costs 1s & 48vp, and armor 20 costs 2s & 100vp or 1s & 200vp. With the default values the FF armor is always best in the heavy class, hardened is always best in the light class, and with medium armor it depends on how you do the rounding.

* Micronizing/Macronizing: Shrinking component sizes

There are components with odd numbered costs and slots, when you halve an odd number there are some options: round up, round down, track the fractions, track some of the fractions. Rounding up is restrictive, it makes some things just not easily resized. Rounding down is permissive, it lets you pack more stuff into the vehicles. Tracking fractions is math, but this is a vehicle design system so you sort of signed up for that any ways. When partially tracking fractions you keep track of the halves, the 0.5s, and round everything else up or down to the nearest integer. Example: With the default armor values heavy ferro-fibrous armor is 7 slots and 20 vp, heavy hardened armor is 4 slots and 50 vp. Microed down to 1 slots gets you hardened armor at 1 slot and 200 vp, compared to the following for ferro-fibrous: Round up = 7->4->2->1 slot & 20->40->80->160 vp. Round down = 7->3->1 slot 20->40->80 vp. Track fractions = 7->3.5->1.75->0.875 slot. Track halves = 7->3.5->2->1 slot.

Sub-components: You can decide if you want sub-components to be required or optionally micro/macro along with the main item. The options are yes, no, user choice, and zero slot components. The cockpit is 4 slots and 5 vp, basic amenities are 0 slots and 3 vp, an alternate control set-up is 1 slot and 10 vp. If you take all three they're 5 slots and 18 vp. If you require the sub-components to be included then you get 1s & 72vp. With user choice you can micro the cockpit and leave the other parts out for 2s & 33vp, but you won't be able to micro the alternate controls. If you just leave the zero slot component out you can get to 1s & 63vp.

Please do keep a hard cap on a minimum of 1 slot when micronizing and not allowing zero slot items to be macronized. It will save you trouble in the long run.

* Passengers and cargo:

Passenger and cargo space can be micronized or macronized once. This is to keep the cargo space generally within the volume of the vehicle. Otherwise it is possible (with some effort) to get 52 m^3 into a 7m by 3m by 3m vehicle (63m^3), plus a fully functional cockpit, drive, and two short range missile launchers or a hurricane bolter. Which is OK for a ship or a cargo truck, probably, but getting a bit silly for some of the other drive types. Keep it sane, one iteration of size change for these systems.

Cargo uses the following formula: 1 slot & 2 vp per unit. Size 1-10 units are 2 m^3, size 11-20 units are 4 m^3, size 21-30 units are 20 m^3. This was based on real world jumbo jets, which are generally size 25ish, using roughly 1/3 of their slots for cargo. There is, technically, no upper limit to cargo space beyond the vehicle size.

Passengers have no changes to the slots or costs, but the vehicle is limited to 1/3 it's size in passenger slots. This puts a hard cap of 512 people on a size 30 vehicle.

A new item is the modular passenger and cargo space. It is 1 slot and 5 vp per unit. A vehicle can have up to 2/5 it's size in modular space (4/10, 8/20, 12/30), although this precludes the use of regular passenger and cargo space. Calculate the maximum passenger and cargo space using the formulas and divide the cargo space and number of passengers by the number of slots used. This gives you your conversion ratio. Example: Using 8/20 slots for modular space costs 40vp, allowing for 32m^ cargo (8*4m^3) or 128 passengers (7 doubling after the first passenger). This gives a ratio of 4m^3 or 16 passengers per slot. The vehicle can accommodate any combination of cargo and passengers in 4/16 "per slot" increments. 16m^3 & 64 passengers for a 4/4 split, 8m^3 & 96 passengers for 2/6, 28m^3 & 16 passengers for 7/1, and so on. As with the other passenger and cargo systems this can be macronized or micronized once. Real world airlines have already done this.

* Weapons: google docs spreadsheet for playing with your own numbers (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tXOEEBSualZwc08eE5IySN9ff6YJOvxDtupInDbz3qs/edit?usp=sharing)

Weapons, frankly, needed to be re-balanced. So, each weapon got a score derived from it's stats (obviously a spreadsheet was involved) and I tried to sort of even them out. The calculation is as follows:

For damage each rolled damage die is a +1, each kept damage die is a +2, each +5 of added damage is a +2 (generally equal to a kept die), 5 penetration is +0 with each 5 over that being a +1 and zero penetration being a -1, if burst fire then + 1/2 the RoF rounding down.

A range modifier of 0.8 + (the lesser of range/500 or 0.45), rounded to two decimal places. 40m range is 0.88, 100m range is 1, 150m range is 1.1, 200m range is 1.2, everything over that is 1.25. Basically there's an upper limit to how useful range is.

Cost is calculated as the lesser of size + (vehicle point cost/5) OR 1/2 size (round up) + (2x (vehicle point cost/5)), the final value is rounded to the nearest whole number. Effectively the 'cheaper' of regular size & cost or one level of miniaturization.

Specials are as follows: Flame, blast radius 5 & 10, twin linked, accurate/homing, indirect, and full auto burst are +1s. Blast radius 25 is +2. No short range shots are a -1. Recharge is a -3. Reliable is ignored. Shocking, scatter, and overheating have been removed.

The overall value is calculated as (damage x range modifier) + specials, which is divided by the cost and rounded to one decimal place. This ends up ranging from 1.7 to 2.6, mostly clustered around 2.1 to 2.3 values. The 1.7 is the bombast laser in weak fire mode, it's blast mode kicks up to 2.4, the primitive ballista gets 1.9, then everything else is 2.1 to 2.5 (except the flamer at 2.6 but that's because it's still pretty cheap). Well, that was the range once I did the balancing. The original values were from 0.8 to 5.5, just an amazing spread. They were the HAG and the area blast Arrow-4 at 0.8, with the multilas at 5.5, the SRM at 5,

Also calculated out was an average damage value, assuming that accurate weapons got +2k2 damage, the twin linked laser got it's two raises, burst weapons hit with up to 5 of their rounds, and the target had 10 armor. Recharge weapon obviously got their 'damage' halved.

A final 'awesome' value was calculated as the overall value times the average damage value divided by 20. This one ranges from 0.9 to 8.5, as a sort of final "it's this awesome to shoot you with" number. The 0.9 is, again, the ballista and the 8.5 is the Arrow-4 victim-seeking cruise missile. With the original numbers it went from 0.7 (Arrow-4 area blast), to 7.4 (multilas), with the SRM at 6.8 and the railgun & PPC over 5.

I think that the overall value may still put more weight on high range and low costs than perhaps it should, but it seems to be offset by the 'awesome' value seriously valuing higher damage.


I'll get the spreadsheet up later. Stand-outs:
ac/20 ultra configuration, 7k4+15, pen 15, rof 3, 100m, 5s & 35vp, 2.2 value, 52 avg dmg, 5.7 awesome
multilas, 3k2+5, pen 0, rof 3, 80m, 2s & 10vp, 2.3 value, 13 avg dmg, 1.5 awesome
wave motion cannon, 7k4+30, pen 20, rof 1, 500m, 10s & 30vp, recharge + accurate + blast(5), 2.5 value, 62/31 avg dmg, 3.9 awesome
flamer, 4k2+10, pen 0, rof 1, 40m, 2s & 10vp, flame, 2.6 value, 17 avg dmg, 2.2 awesome
ballista, 3k1+10, pen 0, rof 1, 100m, 3s & 5vp, 1.9 value, 9 avg dmg, 0.9 awesome
arrow-4 homing missile, 7k4+30, pen 20, rof 1, 500m, 10s & 30vp, no short range shots, 2.2 value, 77 avg dmg, 8.5 awesome

Under the original numbers the ac/20s were trash because of low pen, low range, just OK damage, and high costs. The multilas and flamer were top of the charts because of their really, really, low costs and decent performance. The SRM was freaking amazing because it was OK damage & range, burst fire, and really cheap. Likewise the railgun and PPC were high because of the damage/cost/range analysis. Stuff like the arrow-4, ac/5, and HAG were rated really low.

* Spaceships: Because I'm sure you'll be shooting at them with your light machine guns, and one of you is going to throw a spear or something.

Spaceships are assumed to have rating 20 void shields, 45 points of armor, and 50 size. They cannot take more than 1 point of damage from a vehicle weapon and never take critical damage unless your doing something like firing a WMC or A4 right into a window from point blank range (at that point it's on you to determine what happens). Arrow-4 and the wave motion cannon will do a point of damage about 13% of the time. A hyper-velocity ac/20 can manage it about 1% of the time, and the D-wave gun has maybe a 1/1,000,000 chance. That's with my updated weapon sets. With the originals the wave motion gun has a 3% chance and the mega ppc has a 1% chance.

What next, spaceships, feats, more vehicle stuff...

[Lord Haart]

Hi! Just wanted to chime in and thank you.

While the silence might seem deafening, this thread is, in fact, very appreciated. I think i'm not the only one who, in the past few months, went from "that's a nice Let's Read, gotta check it as it goes on" to "Holy ****, i need to re-read all of that thoroughly while cross-referencing with the books".

And likewise, my opinion of Dungeons the Dragoning went from "Yeah, heard of that, downloaded a .pdf once just for laughs; some joke jumble of a system, but of course too unwieldy and chimerical for any actual use" to "Holy ****, it's actually playable and lets me DM things other systems can't deliver! Now i want to pitch it to my friend and family and run a game (as soon as my daughters grow up enough for DMing to be a possibility once again)!"


Last week, i've pitched the game to my wife, who is generally quite reluctant to learn any new systems or settings. After ten minutes of explanations, she said: "I'm playing One-Punch Man, and shame on you if you don't deliver."

(I don't see a problem with One-Punch Man, aside from the general "combat monkey will feel useless at times" issue, which she understands and is OK with. It's not like there are no ways to optimize for More Damage Than You Need, anyways; also, Setting Sun at 2 dots can let you stack enough Fatigue damage to non-lethally KO anything non-immune, and Shadow Blade at 2 dots has the previously discussed "appear to do nothing for a minute, then deal ALL THE DAMAGES" trick. So just saying "Ok, you can hit as hard as you want" is just a matter of trade-offs and not being able to stack one-punchiness with, say, magic schools or strong social combat. Some of Khorne's mechanics, in particular, seem quite fitting here.

Besides, it would be UTTERLY AGAINST THE VERY SPIRIT OF THE GAME to bar something on basis of it being too awesome.

Truth be told, my first thought at hearing "One-Punch Man" really was: "Well, that would be too OP, i need to tell her so and then we'll discuss the appropriate non-OP approximation…". Then, my second thought was: "wait, isn't that me missing THE WHOLE BLOODY POINT? I've just told her of cyber-werewolf space pirates raiding the Daleks, and now i'm about to backpedal on the first awesome thing that came to my wife's mind? Shame on me for having such a stupid reflex!")

So now i'd better run the game eventually, or else.


I think i won't use all of your houserules and fixes at first (need to get some feel for the base system first), and i'll definitely also houserule a lot on my own (both in spirit of saying "BLOODY HELL YES, AND ALSO" to the players, and because the game itself is positioned as a toolbox of rules rather than a hard official ruleset, anyways), but it'll be also great to have your fixes to fall back on. So your non-review work is also appreciated!

All in all, thank you for a great thread.

(As an aside: do you happen to know why the DtD community seems to hate MLP? I regard Gen 4 MLP as an over-the-top setting full of over-the-top badasses and world-ending threats, and MLP fanfiction is full of crossovers with more overtly violent settings such as WH40k and Fallout, so it felt natural to add some ponies to the setting; however, there were none in the Book of Brew, and the only equine-related race homebrew on the DtD homebrew forums, assuming i found the right forum, got instantly derided and accused of being "in bad faith".)

[Telok]

Hi! Just wanted to chime in and thank you.

While the silence might seem deafening, this thread is, in fact, very appreciated....

I've just told her of cyber-werewolf space pirates raiding the Daleks, ...

I think i won't use all of your houserules and fixes at first (need to get some feel for the base system first), and i'll definitely also houserule a lot on my own (both in spirit of saying "BLOODY HELL YES, AND ALSO" to the players, and because the game itself is positioned as a toolbox of rules rather than a hard official ruleset, anyways), but it'll be also great to have your fixes to fall back on. So your non-review work is also appreciated!

All in all, thank you for a great thread.

Thanks for the noise, it's nice to know that people are finding this useful.

Daleks, modrons. Yeah, that can work. Use the modrons or make your own daleks. Just remember the thrusters/antigrav.

The only things I'd really suggest are the sword school, gun kata, and spell changes. Some stuff was too good for the cost, some was useless, some was just overpriced. Make your own decisions of course, but I tried to even things out. Oh, and give a good hard think about werewolf resource recovery. It did become a problem for the character.

As for the ponies, I don't know. I took a gander at the brew book and their forums. There are, you know, reasons... that I didn't use that stuff and that this read is posted here. My thought on it would be that DtD40k7e came out in 2011 and I don't recall the pony thing really showing up on my radar untill the last 5 - 7 years. Since the game doesn't have any advertising presence it fell through all the cracks after it's first year or two. The only real activity now is us odds and ends who picked it up on a lark and found out that it actually works (mostly). Probably you're seeing a combination of low activity, no advertising, and those few who are active not riding the pony.

I have a run over the feats done, and I'm writing on the classes, no big changes there, but thats a couple pages that need typing up. No idea when I can get to that.

[Telok]

Still doing. Still doing. Semi-random splats of stuff I got to work on during lunch hours and such. Sorry about the formatting but small wiggly screamy-if-ignored children were involved.

Vehicle ramming.

So the original version is a free action that automatically succeeds when you roll over/into something and does (size/2, max 10)k(momentum/3, round up) to the vehicle and the target. Ergo a size 20, speed 1, tracked x3, tank going 30m/round (18 kph) does 10k4. That's the same as a size 30, speed 46 (XL engine & active S2 engine & afterburner), scramjet x20, SSTO going 9.2km/round (5520 kph). A passenger car going 150 kph will only do 4k4 or about 23 damage, a civilian nobody might break a hand or foot.

What do we need. Some sort of attack roll, some sort of dodge roll, some sort of str+size=stop stunt/roll, and better damage. And keeping in mind that this gets used to do crashing damage too.

Ok, ramming 'attack'. Intentional is a skill+attribute with +maneuver+speed (car: drive+dex +5 -> 6k3+5, SSTO: pilot+dex +0+46 -> 6k3+46) against the static defense of the target. Dodge is as normal in that case. Unintentional is an auto-hit but the acrobatics+dexterity target number is speed+momentum+drive (5+10+5 = 20 for the 150kph car, 46+10+20 = 76 for the SSTO). I think that's OK. The SSTO is nasty but it's also basically a mach-4 space shuttle that starts out 1-9 km away for the attack run.

Damage. [size]k[momentum]+(speed*drive), no caps. Lets see, passenger car is 8k10+(5*5) -> 8k8+25 = ~72, SSTO is 30k10+(46*20) -> 10k20+920 -> 10k10+970 = 60+970 = 1030. The car is going to kill any normal person and seriously injure most exalts. The 800+ tonnes of machine going mach-4 will obliterate just about anything, although it only does about 34 HP damage to itself (since it's only got 30 anyways that's fine). Hmmm, even at momentum 1 on a runway the SSTO is running 30k1+400->10 k 10+405 = 465.

Ug, wait. Vehicles as missiles. You can build a size 1, remote control scramjet with an overcharged reactor to... 1k10+(5*20) -> 100+1d10 damage @ pilot+dex+20+5 for 46vp. Ah, drive or size, whichever is lower. So, [size]k[momentum]+(speed* the lesser of drive or size). Cuts that sucker down to 1k1+5, although size increases get us... w/speed 9 & a flaw -> 2k2+18, 3k3+27, 4k4+36. A 2m long missile/drone as an uncommon DC 10 purchase that can do ~58 damage within 1800m and rolls at piloting+10 to hit. Hmm... SRMs are 4k2+10 pen 5 100m-400m range, about 30 damage versus armor 5+, similar to the 2k2+18... I'm almost OK with that. We have some fair low expense guided missiles here. Throw in a perception check and distance penalty, the nuisance of carting them around, susceptible to jamming, shooting them down. Ok, shooting them down is difficult to hit but easy to kill, the size 2 will have 43 defense but 1 hp and 2 resilience, even the size 4 will only be 41 defense and 3 hp with 4 resilience and any hit will invoke the falling rules.

Stoppage. I'd like a power armor, size 5, strength 4, power fist wielding hero to be able to stop a speeding car with brute strength or by punching to a stop about 60% of the time or so. Our example car at size 8, speed 5, wheels x5, 25m/round/momentum -> 15 kph/momentum (93 mph max, pushing it can get a bit more but it's OK for a cheap economy car), rams at 6k3+5 intentional or 20 dodge check accidental for ~72 damage (or 8k1+25=~37 and 8k5+25=~65). Hmm. Strength+Size and a 2 die stunt is 10k6 averages 45 @ 65% and 50 @ 47%, damage however is only going to run about 30 to 35 points.

Ok, how about if you can beat the damage with [athletics+strength]k[size] you can bring the vehicle to a stop without damage to either of you, but it pushes you back half it's remaining movement distance (and hitting something else is also a ramming of course).

For punching, if you do more hp damage than it's momentum through blunt force trauma you can stop a vehicle up to your size+constitution before it hits you. If you punch something bigger than that it loses half the hp damage in momentum. So punch a size 12 vehicle, do 2-3 hp, slow it by 1 momentum, then it loses 2 more from ramming. Punch a size 8 car for about 4 wounds, and it stops for up to momentum 4. Up to momentum 6 is still hits you but for much less damage and still stops after that. Of course if it runs out of hit points it crashes and stops. And 2+ hp of damage still causes a critical roll that could slow it down more or roll on the out of control chart which could deflect ot stop it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

name roll keep bonus pen ROF rng size cost note
ac/5 4 2 5 0 1 250 2 15
ac/10 5 2 10 5 1 200 3 20
ac/15 6 3 10 10 1 150 4 25
ac/20 7 4 15 15 1 100 5 30
ac5+hv 4 2 5 5 1 450 2 20
ac10+hv 5 2 10 10 1 350 3 25
ac15+hv 6 3 10 15 1 250 4 30
ac20+hv 7 4 15 20 1 150 5 35
ac/5+u 4 2 5 0 3 250 2 20 burst
ac/10+u 5 2 10 5 3 200 3 25 burst
ac/15+u 6 3 10 10 3 150 4 30 burst
ac/20+u 7 4 15 15 3 100 5 35 burst
pun lt 3 2 5 0 8 100 2 15 burst
pun hv 4 3 10 0 8 80 3 20 burst
RG 4 3 10 10 1 500 4 25 accurate + reliable
HRG 6 4 10 10 1 300 5 30 accurate
HAG 4 3 10 10 8 100 4 25 burst
mlas 3 2 5 0 3 80 2 10 burst + reliable
blazer 4 3 5 5 1 100 3 15 twin + reliable
bombast 4 3 5 5 1 100 4 15 bi-modal + reliable
bombast 6 4 5 10 1 150 4 15 bi-modal + recharge
plasmaD 4 3 15 15 1 100 4 15 recharge & removed overheat
mMelta 5 3 15 15 1 50 4 20
VMbolt 6 2 10 10 6 120 4 25 burst & tearing
Hbolter 4 2 5 5 10 100 3 20 burst & tearing
WMcann 7 4 30 20 1 500 10 30 recharge, accurate, blast 5
Dcannon 4 2 5 20 3 40 2 20 burst
PPC 5 2 10 5 1 200 3 20 ???
MPPC 7 4 20 15 1 250 7 25 recharge
flamer 4 2 10 0 1 40 2 10 burning
cat 4 1 10 0 1 50 4 5 ADD INDIRECT
ball 3 1 10 0 1 100 3 5 reliable
lrm 3 2 10 5 1 500 3 15 HOMING (accurate+) & no Short range shots
lrm-S 4 3 10 5 1 500 4 20 blast 10 & no Short range shots
srm 4 2 10 5 1 100 2 15
srm-TC 3 3 10 10 1 100 3 20 tandem-charge (vehicle crits roll)
A4M 7 4 30 20 1 500 10 30 no Short range shots
A4m-cl 10 5 15 10 1 500 10 30 blast 25 & no Short range shots
A4M-hm 7 4 30 20 1 500 11 35 HOMING (accurate+) & no Short range shots

Class changes

Cleric: Change Powerful Charge to an optional feat at Priest (1st level) and add Spell Specialization (Healing) as an optional feat at Bishop (5th level).

Fighter: Change Combat Master to be an optional feat at Fighter (4th level).

Mage: Add Charm to the skill list.

Guardsman: Add Tech-Use to the skill list.

Paladin: Change Powerful Charge to be an optional feat at Gallant (1st level).

Scholar, Peasant, Mercenary: Add Drive to the skill list.

Initiate: Add Perform and Politics to the skill list.

Rat Catcher: Add Acrobatics to the skill list.

Courtier: Add Combat Insight as a required feat at Diplomat (3rd level), add Jaded and Foresight as required feats at Legate (4th level), and add Danger Sense as a required feat at Emissary (5th level).

Tech-Priest: Change Jaded to be an optional feat at Mech-Wright (1st level).

Swordmage: Add Charm and Deceive to the skill list. Change Armor Proficiency (Medium) to be a required feat at Runeblade (3rd level).

Monk: Add Medicae to the skill list, change Wall of Steel to be a required feat at Immaculate Master (4th level), and add Lightning Attack as an optional feat at Grand Master of Flowers (5th level).

Druid: Add Disguise to the skill list, change Spell Specialization to (Any) and make it required at Druid (3rd level). Add Bear Hug as a required feat at ArchDruid (4th level). Add Meditation and Wholeness of Body as required feats at Patriarch (5th level). Change Beastmaster to a required feat at Patriarch (5th level).

Gunmage: Add Pilot and Larceny to the skill list, change Obtain Familiar to an optional feat at Gunmage (3rd level), add Armor Proficiency (Medium) as an optional feat at BulletWizard (4th level), and add Spell Focus (Any) as an optional feat at Witch-Sniper (5th level).

Sheriff: Add Politics, Drive, and Persuade to the skill list. Add Air of Authority as a required feat at Judge (5th level).

Sniper: Add perform to the skill list, change Trance to an optional feat at Hunter (1st level), and change Skill Focus (Stealth) to a required feat at Quickscope (4th level).

Heavy Weapons Guy: Add Drive, Pilot, Perception, and Persuasion to the skill list. Change Iron Curtain to a required feat at Living Fortress (5th level).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

General armor & armor proficiency table.

Armor static defense penalty. Proficient/non-proficient.
light: 0/ap
medium: 0/ap
heavy: 3/ap
extreme: 4/ap
power: 7/ap+2

Channel Energy (change): Make a brawling attack and spend resource up to your level. Heal or inflict one hit point per resource on a hit.

Combat Insight (clarification): When attempting to dodge you may roll Intelligence+Acrobatics and by using Intelligence may thus avoid the armor maximum Dex limit. Aimed atacks may be Int+Skill instead of Level+Skill.

Danger Sense (suggestion): As DM write down the initiative modifiers of all characters. Ask the players to roll a d10, but don't tell them that it's a combat initiative roll. If the character(s) with Danger Sense act before the surprise situation occurs (i.e. they win initiative over the ambushers) tell then that their danger sense activates and ask them what they do, but don't officially declare combat and initiative if there is the chance that combat may not ensue due to the PC's (re)actions.

Divine Bond (addition): Use the Ferocious Creature stat block in the Antagonists section, increasing it's size to 150% of the character's size if necessary. Allow the character to buy armor, weapons, drugs, cybernetics, etc., for the creature (keep in mind that it doesn't have hands, although elephantine trunks are not an impossibility). Every time the character gains a level assign one additional armor or weapon feat, one additional feat from the allowed feat list, and two additional skill points to the steed. The steeds level is equal to the higher of your level minus one, or it's normal level. Allowed feats: Blind Fighting, Catfall, Defensive Mobility, Evasion, Heightened Senses, Light Sleeper, Sound Constitution, Weapon Focus, Combat Mastery.

Divine Grace (clarification): The phrase "enemy or environmental effects" should include the following: Supernatural fear auras, spells resisted by Arcana+Willpower saves, and the Purge the Unclean feat. It does not include the results of drug addiction, shock, insanity, and mental trauma.

Divine Ministration (change): The person with this feat can only use this on any particular person once per day.

Fearless (fix): This feat is split into two versions: "Cool" and "Angry". Both version confer immunity to fear. The angry version confers immunity to pinning and requires a TN 15 Willpower check to disengage from combat or back down from a fight. Use the following lists to determine which version a class.species has access to. "Cool": Stubjack, Bishop, Swashbuckler. "Angry": Chevalier, Grenadier, Fighter, Barbarian, Assimar, Living Fortress.

Frenzy (clarification): When entering frenzy you gain +1 Constitution, this adds +2 Hit Points/wound capacity to a player character. These are bonus HPs and an increase in the character's maximum wound capacity. When the frenzy wears off the character's Constitution and wound capacity return to normal, extra HPs above the maximum are lost. But the character does not, under any circumstances, take additional wounds/HP loss when the frenzy wears off.

Obtain Familiar (addition): Choose (or the DM builds/designates) a level 1 creature, robot, zombie, animal, spirit, elemental, etc., from the Antagonists section that is size 1 or 2. It's level is 1/3 of your level, rounded to the nearest whole number. Every time your level increases after you gain the familiar it increases one attribute or skill by one point. It cannot increase the same attribute or skill twice in a row. If the familiar dies any replacement familiar does not have the increased abilities. Fleshy and constructed familiars may have cyberwear.

Wizard Traditions (changes): Hidden Flame - The dazzle lasts until the end of your next turn. Iron Sigil - No changes. Golden Wyvern - After you successfully cast a divination spell the next skill roll before the end of your next turn gains a bonus equal to your ranks in Divination magic. Emerald Frost - Ignore Aura equal to your ranks in Evocation magic, this is effectively magic 'armor' penetration. Serpent Eye - Removed. Stormwalker - Removed. Speed Dial - When you attempt to cast a full action conjuration spell, the next full action conjuration spell that you attempt to cast before the end of your next turn takes only a half-action. Chill of the Grave - When you attempt to cast a necromancy spell, the next necromancy spell that you successfully cast before the end of the scene gains a free raise.

Dragonborn Frenzy (clarification): The bonus damage is equal to the number of levels of critical hits that you've taken. Thus three results of crit-1 on your legs plus a crit-3 on your head and a crit-2 on your torso gives you +8 to your damage rolls. The bonus is capped at +5 per body location.

Eureka! (clarification): This applies to any Skill+Attribute roll and require any appropriate actions to use the device. It is not permissible to replace such rolls as alignment, initiative, pinning, and fear tests without at least a really good stunt.

Human Perseverance (change): The bonus to to opposed rolls is +1k0. It does not apply to attacks, dodging, or parry attempts.

Outsider (change): If you would only have taken one point of critical damage then you may choose to take none. This replaces the 'minimum of one' text.

Terminator Honors (change): You may use a Hero Point to ignore damage equal to your size+level until the start of your next turn.

Warp Fire (clarification): This is a visual effect and does not benefit people who cannot see it. Magical darkness and sufficiently heavy smoke block it. It does reveal the position of things that turn invisible, but the DM is within their rights to ask how you're targeting the warp fire at a creature that is currently invisible (and possibly ask for a roll of some sort).

Driven (clarification): A 'superior enemy' includes being out numbered, seriously out gunned, and opposed rolls were the opponent has more dice rolled and kept.

Eagle Eyes (problem): Needs perception rules.

Linguist (addition): The additional language feat is always considered to be in-class for you.

Magic Resistance (change): The level of resistance is 5 plus your power attribute.

Spirit Mentor (suggestion): Draw the ghost from the PC's backstory. Use the ghost stat block in the Antagonists chapter with the addition of the appropriate skills, magics, sword schools, or gun katas, necessary to make them a useful ally. Decide if the character can call on the spirit or if the spirit gets to choose when to annoy the character. If there is no backstory or player input the DM should feel free to go all Jacob Marley/Charles Dickens with the spirit.

Tough As Nails (change): If and only if you have any hit points left before taking damage then the most critical damage that you can take is one point. If that hit would only do one point of critical damage then it does none.

Veteran O' the Wheel (suggestion): If the PC has an idea or backstory, work with that. If the PC has no background or backstory you should use the following formula -> A number of generic hindrances equal to the sum of: 1 plus a skill or attribute taken to 4 (+1) or over 4 (+2). The hindrance list is: Clueless, Enemy, Wanted, Grim Servant O' Death, Wanted. For every hindrance on that list the character already possesses use Loco, Ugly as Sin, and Geezer. If you still need more just keep upping the power and activity levels of the chosen Enemy.

Big Britches (addition): It requires a TN 15 Wisdom test to back down from or refuse a fight, challenge, or bet. You take a -1k0 penalty to all rolls using Wisdom in social combat.

Clueless (addition): Determine which pathetic backwater you came from. Attempts to impress or bluff people from places that aren't pathetic backwaters are at -1k0. Take a -1k0 penalty on the social combat Refute action.

Deathwish (removal): This hindrance no longer exists. Player characters naturally seem to have these anyways.

High-Falutin' (addition): Check Fellowship+Performance vs Wisdom+Scrutiny to hide you distaste and avoid the -1k0 penalty when dealing with your social inferiors. If you fail by 10 or more (2 checks) the penalty increases to -1k1.

Impulsive (addition): When people start planning or waiting for something to happen you need to roll the lowest of your Composure, Willpower, or Wisdom against target number 15. If there is ongoing combat that you aren't participating in the target number increases to 25. When you fail, act without regard to the plan or your level of readiness. Repeat this roll every so often if you're getting bored.

Intolerance (addition): Choose a group following the guidelines in the Peer feat and determine your particular prejudice. Gain +1k0 to social rolls to taunt, insult, and annoy that group. Take a -2k0 penalty to all other social rolls involving that group.

Kid (addition): Take a -2k0 social penalty and a -5 on wealth tests to buy stuff in all situations where being under the legal age for something might matter.

Law O' the Stars (addition): Choose one of the more principled alignments from the Palladium RPG to use as your code of honor. Make an alignment test every time you violate that code.

Night Terrors (addition): Characters that are immune to fatigue cannot take this hindrance.

Vengeful (addition): Whenever you feel the least bit insulted or wronged you need to roll the lowest of your Composure, Willpower, or Wisdom against target number 15. Failure indicates that you need to change your immediate goals to getting revenge. Success means that you can put off revenge until after your current goal is met and maybe you'll consider accepting an apology. Minor offenses, like being cut off in traffic, short changed, or not getting a toy in your Happy Meal, can still be immediately dealt with by breaking a few bones or a drive-by shooting.

Wanted (addition): Choose a group following the guidelines in the Peer feat and determine your particular crime. The reward for your death or capture is not insignificant and will usually attract more skilled bounty hunters as time goes on. The Dm should roll a d10 at the start of every session. On a roll equal to or less than your level+fame someone will try to collect the bounty.

Wimpy (change): You Constitution is considered to be half (rounded up) for the purposes of calculating hit points, fatigue, and knock-out effects.

Atlantean Asset, Zenith Caste (change): The damage reduction is equal to the character's Gnosis+motes spent and lasts until the start of the character's next turn.

Chosen Asset, Cuthbert (clarification): "Crime". If you have the feat Peer(Law Enforcement Group) use the laws that your peer group would use. Otherwise you may use one of the more principled alignments from the Palladium RPG as an honor code or come up with a "jurisdiction" in consultation with the DM. Things that would only warrant a warning or token fine may not apply.

Chosen Asset, Khorn (addition): Gain one dot in the associated sword school or gun kata.

Chosen Asset, Nurgle (change): You ignore non-killing critical effects that are less than your power attribute, to a minimum of critical 1 effects.

Daemonhost Asset, Rage (change): Replace the E-type damage text with -> You gain the Frenzy feat and may enter the frenzy as a reaction.

Paragon Asset, Legendary (addition): Buying up this attribute costs 100xp less than normal once per session.

Vampire Asset, Toreador (addition): Gain one dot in both Craft and Perform skills, to a maximum of 5 dots. Those skills are always considered to be in-class.

Werewolf Assets
Black Spiral Dancers (Addition): While in WarForm you regain one Rage whenever you kill something.

Get of Fenris (addition): The bonuses when you spend Rage also include +1 Brawling and +1 Weaponry. Whenever you personally defeat or kill a significant enemy you regain one Rage.

Iron Masters (addition): You also gain +1 dot in Tech-Use, to a maximum of 5 dots, and Tech-Use is always considered in-class. When an enemy or opponent destroys rare, expensive, or unique technology in your presence you regain 2 points of Rage.

Red Talons (addition): Choose one of your physical attributes. When you are in Wolf form you gain a +1 to this attribute. You regain 1 Rage every hour while you are in Wolf form.

Silent Strider (addition): Regain 1 Rage every time you roll Psychic Phenomena and every time you roll Perils of the Warp.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Animal Companion (change): Use either the minion rules or an actual creature. If you use the minion rules the animal companion(s) number, threat rating, and damage rating are all 1 to start with. If you use a creature you should get the stat block of one of the animalistic creatures from the Antagonists chapter of Book 1. These creatures are not amenable to cybernetic augmentation and tend to react badly to drugs. Mistreatment of companions is considered a violation of the druidic oath.

Beastmaster (change): If you are using the minion version of the Animal Companion feat increase the number, threat rating, and damage rating of your animal companion by one, to a maximum of 5 in each category. If you are using the creature version Increase one of it's physical attributes, one of it's mental attributes, and it's size, all by one point. Give it a feat, and give it an attribute from the following list: Feats(Devastating Critical, Fearless[Angry], Improved Weapon Focus, Iron Jaw, Swift Attack, True Grit, Step Aside), attributes(Armor Plating[4], Dark Sight, Unnatural Toughness, Regeneration[1]). The creature's level is equal to your level.

Combat Sense (clarification): When attempting to dodge you may roll Wisdom+Acrobatics and by using Wisdom may thus avoid the armor maximum Dex limit. Aimed attacks may be Wisdom+Skill instead of Level+Skill.

Elemental Shot I. II. and III (change/clarification): Replace 'once per session' with 'once per day'. Each 'shot' feat is it's own distinct use. If you gain an ability that allows extra uses of the shots then those extra uses are not distinct uses of a feat. Example: Bob has taken Elemental Shot I twice, once for Fire and once for Ice, and Elemental Shot II once for Aqua. Bob also has an ability that allows it to use the Elemental Shot feats two extra times each day. Bob has a total of five uses of the Elemental Shot feats each day. Bob can use each of Fire, Ice, and Aqua once a day, plus Bob has two more uses which can be any of Fire, Ice, or Aqua.

Expert Tracker (problem): No tracking rules.

Jerry Rig (change): Change the hull point bonus from +1 to +1d5.

Improved Animal Companion (change): If you are using the minion version of the animal companion increase by one point tow of the three following attributes: it's number, threat rating, or damage. No attribute can go over 5. If you are using the creature version of the the animal companion increase any one of it's physical or mental characteristics (except intelligence) by one and select one feat from the following list: Armor Proficiency, Blind Fighting, Catfall, Defensive Mobility, Evasion, Heightened Senses, Light Sleeper, Sound Constitution, Weapon Focus, Combat Mastery. The creature's level is equal to the higher of your level minus one, or it's normal level.

Iron Curtain (clarification): The resistance lasts until the stat of your next turn.

Lead Fingers (suggestion): This only works with weapons that shoot physical objects like bullets, arrows, and needles. If the penetration of the weapon is higher than the armor/barrier rating fo the object you risk damaging or destroying the thing you're shooting at. You may either roll damage and apply it to the object, or roll a d10 and any roll equal to or less than the penetration of the weapon causes the object being shot to be damaged or destroyed.

Lumen Blast (addition): If the character is immune to fatigue they may only use this feat once per scene.

Lumen Charge (addition): If the character is immune to fatigue they must spend twice as many resource points as it would cost in fatigue for them to activate this feat.

Machanus Implants (stuff): The implants have three mechanical game rule functions. 1) The vox voice alteration aids in mimicry for a +1k0 bonus to impersonate or duplicate vocalized sounds. 2) The respirator acts as a common bionic respiration system, if the character already possesses such a system it's quality improves by one step. 3) The electro-graft act as a poor quality mind impulse unit. If the character already possesses one then it's quality improves by one step.

Pinball Wizard (suggestion): Treat this as a variant of the Lead Fingers feat. I can, reasonably, work with energy weapons if you accept some level of general damage to the electronics. Shooting a lock with a heavy blaster to jam the door will have the desired effect, although since that destroys the controls it's generally irreversible.

Spell Bullet (clarification): The spell affects or emanates from whatever the bullet hits. This cannot be used with energy weapons.

Spell Shield (clarification): Since you're constantly making the warding gestures with your free hand this is both generally obvious and you aren't just doing it all the danged time whenever you're awake.

Steel Rain (change): The target(s) suffer a penalty to their dodge rolls equal to double your rate of fire.

Stunning Fist (change): You gain the stunning quality on your brawling attacks if you spend a resource point and the target number for this shocking quality is equal to your level x5.

K'vend'l (addition): This feat only works when acquiring stuff from other kobolds. Wealth tests with feral orks don't benefit from this asset.

Recluse (change): The target number to resist your personal toxins loaded into toxic weapons is 5 higher than normal. This replaces th 'roll toxic damage twice' text.

Dragonblooded Asset, Blood of Io (addition): A character can be assumed to start play with a number of these wealth bundles equal to their wealth background. Acquiring more of them needs a 15 wealth test for one, a 20 wealth test for two, or a 25 wealth test for four of them. It is generally ill-advised to attract attention to your possession of large amounts of loose, liquid, wealth, by attempting this purchase more than once in any particular metropolis.

Wraith Asset, Children of Silence (change): You may have a number of normal zombies up to your Synergy rating. After that you need to form them into minion groups. You may have a number of minion groups equal to your Synergy rating at any one time. Each group can have up to 4x your Synergy rating zombies in it. You may not mix and match regular zombies with minion groups. You may regroup your minions outside of combat.

Spacey bits

Crew rolls: The maximum number of crew that can be assigned to any one roll is 10.

Adjust speed: This is a piloting crew roll adjusted by the acceleration of the ship. It can no more than double the speed of the ship.

Adjust Heading: This is a piloting crew roll adjusted by the maneuverability of the ship. With a target number 35 check you can do a bootlegger reverse/flip, where the ship moves half of it's speed forward before turning 180 degrees and moving half or none of it's speed.

Boarding party: You can attempt to destroy weapons and ship consoles instead of attacking the crew. You must have previously identified the console with an active augury and it must be something that can be damaged or disabled from a single location within the ship (so not things like ablative armor or reinforced bulkheads). When you successfully beat the defenders they still lose 2 crew. If you beat them by a number of raises equal to the cost of the console divided by 5 (i.e. get 3 raises over the defenders for a targeting computer console that costs 15 points) then the console is damaged to such an extent that it cannot be repaired during combat. If you beat the defenders but not by the required number of raises the console is only disabled until an engineering crew action against target number 15 is made.

Picard speech: The target number of the speech is 30 minus 5x the crew quality. The speech cannot raise the crew quality above 5.

Divert power to engines: On the next turn the ship's speed is 150% normal +1 per two raises.

Fighters:
Devote a number of crew to the fighters. This results in a fighter minion squad of [# of crew]k[crew quality], where their static defense is 5x crew quality, and their base damage is 5. You may deploy or retrieve only one fighter squad each turn.

When used in attack mode they attack as per the normal minion rules. Roll the number of crew, keep the crew quality, on hitting the opposing static defense they do 5 damage +5 per raise with no shield disruption and no critical bonuses. Their attack range is twice the crew quality in void units.

When used in support mode one fighter squad may reduce one enemy boarding action's rolled dice by the lesser of their number or crew quality. Each ship's turn one fighter minion may be sacrificed to negate a single weapon hit (if three lance weapons hit with a single roll only one fighter may be sacrificed and it will only block a single weapon). One supporting fighter squad may be used in an opposed roll against one attack by enemy fighters. The enemy fighters must beat both the ship's static defense and the supporting fighter squad's roll in order to do damage.

New tactical console: Fighter Bays, cost 15 or 25. You may launch and retrieve one fighter squad of up to 10 fighters each turn. This console may be taken more than once, increasing the number of fighter squads that may be launched or retrieved. The 25 build point fighter bay supports fighters that are capable of in-atmosphere operation, landings, and ground attacks. These are treated as a lance battery attack but the ship does not have to enter a low orbit in order to make the attack.

-------------------------------------
Weapons:
Heavy cannon: 6k4 dis5 acc-10 crit3 rng20 cost20 arc-narrow
Heavy beam array: 4k2 dis2 acc+0 crit1 rng15 cost15 arc-narrow
Cannon: 4k3 dis4 acc-5 crit2 rng10 cost15 arc-normal
Beam array: 3k2 dis2 acc+5 crit-1 rng10 cost10 arc-normal
Turret: 3k2 dis3 acc+0 crit0 rng5 cost10 arc-wide

Melta - +1k1 damage, +1 disruption, -5 accuracy, +1 critical, range minimal (x2/5 or 0.4), cost +5
Plasma - +1k0 damage, -2 disruption, -5 accuracy, +2 critical, range normal, cost +5
Orgone - -1k0 damage, +3 disruption, +5 accuracy, -2 critical, range normal, cost -5
Mass driver - normal damage, -2 disruption, +5 accuracy, +0 critical, range short (x4/5, 0.8), cost -5
Positron - normal damage, +2 disruption, -5 accuracy, +1 critical, range long (x8/5, 1.6), cost +5
Anti-meson - -1k0 damage, -1 disruption, +0 accuracy, +0 critical, range extreme (x2), cost -5

RANGES 20 15 10 5
minimal 8 6 4 2
short 16 12 8 4
normal 20 15 10 5
long 32 24 16 8
extreme 40 30 20 10

----------------------------------------------------

Travel:
Recall that for individual rolls (not crew actions) up to two people with the appropriate skill may help, granting +1k0 dice for each assistant. If there is no pressure, no combat, and no real time restraints you can skip directly to step 3. All ships are presumed to have someone capable of making the navigation and piloting rolls, normally with attributes and skills equal to the crew quality of the ship. PCs are encouraged to take over for novice crews whenever possible.

1) Exit the crystal sphere. Natural openings can be found (if they exist) with an active augury crew action plus the ships sensors against target number 20. You have at least a +10 on the roll if you possess a map of the crystal sphere that shows such openings (or if you entered via such an opening and it hasn't closed or moved). Transmitting nav-beacons and active Syrneth crystal sphere portals are usually automatically located by even the most basic sensors. For random dice rolling purposes they are often about 500 VU away (1d100+50 x5) Once at the edge of the crystal sphere, if there isn't a stable natural or artificial portal, you can open your own portal by adjusting your shields to emit a field that disrupts the crystal sphere instead of protecting the ship. This takes an arcana crew action against target number 15. You get +5 per mark of your shields (i.e. +5 for Mk I, +10 for Mk II, etc.) but such things as warp vortexes, astral rifts, manifest daemons, and impeded magic flow within the crystal sphere can each add +5 or more to the target number. On a success the opening in the crystal sphere will stay open for 1d5 hours +/- (your choice) an hour for each raise on the check. It is strongly suggested that you realign your shields as soon as possible. Failure by 2 or more checks means that the portal will open but it is unstable and may close at any moment. A maneuver crew action, modified by the ship's acceleration, against target number 30 will get through safely, or against 15 if you keep the shields adjusted to disrupt the crystal sphere. Failing this check means that the crystal sphere edge collapses into your ship doing 8k6 hull damage and 1d10 critical damage rolls. If you wish to try again you will need to move at least 100 VU away from your last attempt in order to minimize the disruptive instability, or wait 10 to 20 hours.

2) Assuming that you've made it out of the crystal sphere and into astral space, you will need to open a portal into the Warp. If there is a working Syrenth Warp portal available you should use it, as that is the safest option. Otherwise your navigator or astropath will make an Arcana + Intelligence check against target number 15, +5 for using an ancient spelljamming helm, -15 if they don't know Divination magic, and the target number will be higher if you're in a Sargasso or there is Modron activity within a few light years. Failure will tax the navigator to the tune of 1d10 levels of fatigue. Bleeding out of the nose and ears is normal, your navigator will recover without permanent damage. Assuming that you succeed the portal will engulf nearby space, including your ship, and you will be in the Warp.

3) The navigator must then chart a course through the Warp, using Sigil and any nearby Syrneth Warp beacons as navigational aids. The navigator rolls Arcana + Wisdom against a target number 20. The number of Arcana dice that the navigator rolls cannot be more than their skill in Divination magic. The roll is modified by the ship's sensors, +5 for the possession of a Syrenth route map, +5 for starting from a Syrenth Warp portal, +5 for going to Sigil, +5 for going somewhere with a working Syrenth Warp portal, and -5 for going where you've never gone before. For every two raises that you succeed with you get an additional +5 on the rolls in step 4. If you've failed the navigation roll you take a -10 penalty on the rolls in step 4.

Flight time table
Travel time : Target number : Proximity
1d10+5 days : 5 : Nearby, next door, less than half a sector away.
1d10 weeks : 10 : Almost nearby, the other side of the sector.
~11 weeks : 15 : The far side of the next sector.
2d5 months : 20 : Somewhere in the next sector.
~11 months : 30: Past the next sector or two.
1d5 years : 40 : More than half way across explored space.

4) Someone has to be in charge of steering the ship through the Warp. Your best pilot makes a Piloting + Wisdom roll, adjusted for the ship's acceleration, against a target number form the flight time table. Additional +5s come from using a Syrenth route map or being part of a convoy. -5s come from passing near warp vortexes, reality rifts, Sargasso, daemon spawning nebula, and not having someone else to take the helm while you get some sleep once in a while. For every two raises on a successful roll you reduce the time that the trip takes by one step, years->months->weeks->days, to a minimum of 1d10+5 days. Each time you fail the piloting roll you roll on the Warp Encounters chart at an additional +1 horribleness, have to make another piloting check at a cumulative -5 penalty, and the time that the trip takes in increased by one step. Time increases beyond the 1d5 years simply take another 1d5 years, each. Either way, at the end of your trip roll once on the Warp Encounters chart with whatever total horribleness you've accumulated along the way.

Warp Encounter Chart
less than 3 : No encounters. A nice boring trip.
3 & 4 : Whispers and dreams. Occasional unnerving hallucinations.
5 : Visitations. Ghosts, spirits, shades, the spirit of Xmas past, and other assorted nuisances haunt the ship for a while. Some of them might not be all bad, others might drink all the beer and rum.
6 : Ghost Ships. A space hulk, pirates, giant space monsters, flying daemon palaces, who knows? There's something out there on the edge of sensor range, and if you don't do anything it may get the drop on you.
7 : Do the Time Warp, again. The time the trip takes changes. It's 50/50 if the ships experienced time or the time you're gone from the real world changes. It's also 50/50 if the time increases or decreases. Move someone's perception of time by one or two (sure 50/50 again, why not) steps on the Flight Time Table.
8 : Reality Erosion. For the duration of the trip corridors don't lead to the usual places, gravity (real and artificial) is unstable, and your keys can't be found (stuff isn't usually where you thought you left it). Multiple instances of this result just make it worse and, even better, permanent. It's possible to even swap some pieces of the ship with other ships in the warp. Which could be bad if that other ship is a wrecked space hulk.
9 : Minor Incursion. A lesser daemon has slipped on board. Animalistic and cunning, it may be able to haunt the dark corners of the ship for days or weeks, preying on crew members who venture out alone. You should probably hunt it down and kill it.
10 : Warp Storm. A terrible storm in the warp messes everything up. Re-roll your navigation and piloting checks without any bonuses from maps, portals, or the rest of the convoy (where did they all go?).
11 : Major Incursion. A blip in the Geller field has allowed a greater daemon to either slip aboard or possess someone, probably the astropath or navigator but possibly the pilot or captain. Either way, things are going to get real ugly, real fast.
12+ : Geller Field Failure. The Geller field is failing, which is a bad thing. And for some reason there's a bunch of dead crew in engineering section. Get someone down there to make a Tech-Use + Wisdom roll against target number 25, and maybe wipe the Chief Engineer's guts off the consoles while you're at it. Treat this as a result of "Minor Incursion" with an additional result of 1d5+4, and repeat it every time that repair check is failed or every five-ish minutes (whichever is more often). For every repair attempt that gets two or more checks add a "Major Incursion". After 5 failed checks the Geller field collapses and you all die.

5) Oh, look, you're still alive. Once you get where you're going it's time to leave the Warp. If there is a working Syrenth Warp portal available you should use it, as that is the safest option. Otherwise your navigator or astropath will make an Arcana + Intelligence check against target number 15, +5 for using an ancient spelljamming helm, -15 if they don't know Divination magic, and the target number will be higher if you're in a Sargasso or there is Modron activity witin a few light years. Failure will drop you out of the Warp dangerously close to another object, probably flying right at it if you get a check on the roll. Get two or more checks and you're trapped in the Warp. Your navigator takes Energy damage of [number of checks]k1 to the head (no armor, no aura) and 1d10 fatigue. Try again. If you're stuck there for more than a couple hours roll another Warp encounter and keep rolling every 2d10 hours after that.

6) Welcome back to astral space, you probably want to enter a crystal sphere now. This is the same as Step 1.


-------------------------------------------------------------

Ramming:

Optional: You may want to be nice and allow the captains of the ships involved to spend a Hero point in order to roll a "Brace for Impact" command action when it isn't their turn.

Ramming Damage: Calculate damage in the following manner. Rolled dice equal to how far the ramming ship will travel this turn. Kept dice are based on the rammer's size and are equal to 2 for escorts, 3 for destroyers, 4 for cruisers, 5 for battleships, 6 for space stations, 8 for large asteroids, 10 for planets. This attack ignores shields. The rammed ship takes full damage and the ramming ship suffers half damage. Both ships roll on the critical chart at +0. If an asteroid or planet is involved roll three times on the critical chart.

Crashing: This is uncontrolled ramming, or accidental ramming. Treat this as ramming with the following changes. 1) For rolled dice, the difference in speeds is used when both objects are going the same direction, and the sum of the speeds is used when they are going in the same direction. If it's a bunch of odd angles, don't do math, just use the higher speed. If it's mid-round and one of the ships hasn't moved yet use half their speed rating or whatever speed they went last turn if you wrote it down. 2) Each object uses the other object's size as kept dice. 3) If you're crashing into a planetoid treat each m/s^2 of gravity as as speed of 1.

Crashing examples:
1) A Sultana class escort doesn't bother to put any crew towards piloting and clips a Belle class battleship. S travels 6 vu and ends up in the same spot as B. B traveled 4 vu last turn. It is a head-on collision. 6+4=10 so S takes 10k5 (average ~42), and B takes 10k2 (average ~22). Both ships roll on the critical damage chart once at +0.

2) A Belle class battleship does not have planetary landing capability and has seriously flubbed an orbital bombardment piloting roll. The pilot heroically attempts to miss the planet. A standard 1g planet has 10m/s^2 gravity thus a "speed" of 10. 10-4=6 so the ship takes 6k10 -> 6k6 damage (average ~35). Roll three times on the critical damage chart. The 'landing' area technically takes 6k5 damage and planets don't take critical hits.

3) A Sultana class escort is being crashed into a pirate base on a moon with 1.7 m/s^2 gravity. 12+2=14 so 14k10 -> 10k10+10 damage (average ~70) and three rolls on the crit chart. If the base is statted as an immobile ship it takes 14k2 -> 10k4 damage (average ~37) and three rolls on the crit chart.

--------------------------------------------------

Orbital Strikes:

Entering a low orbit:
If you fail the Maneuver test to enter low orbit by less than two calls (you get a 16-24 total) make another Maneuver test at target number 30 to avoid crashing into the planet. If you fail the second test by less than two checks (you get a 21-29 total) your piloting crew's attempt to heroically miss the planet isn't a complete failure, subtract your ship's speed from the m/s^2 gravity to find your crashing speed. If either of these failed by more than two calls add your ship's speed to the m/s^2 gravity to find the speed at which you plow face first into the ground.

Optional Weapon Range Rules: Subtract the range of the shortest ranged weapons that you will be using from 40 to determine the Maneuver test target number.

Optional Planetary Maneuvering Rules: For every doubling or halving of the planet's gravity add or subtract 5 points from the Maneuver test target number. For every navigational hazard (beanstalks, near by orbital weapon platforms, radiation belts, gravitational anomalies) add 5 to the target number. If the planetoid lacks an atmosphere subtract 5 from the target number.

Shooting the crap out of them:
Pick an 'arc' of the ship to be shooting out of (front, rear, sides). Only weapons that can point that way get to shoot.

The base target number for shooting ground targets is 25. Reduce the target number by 5 for having some sort of a homing beacon down there. Increase it by 5 for nasty or thick atmospheres & weather, attempts at camouflage or stealth. If your target is moving increase the target number by 5 plus the speed of the target in kilometers per hour of the target. And you still can't manage to target single vehicles, an armored column of 30+ tanks is about the best you can manage.

Remember that the weapon's accuracy bonus or penalty applies to the rolls.

Each weapon that hits scatters 1d10 * 100 meters, minus 100 meters for every raise on the attack roll. Each weapon that misses scatters 1k1 kilometers, plus another kilometer per call on the attack roll. If you're shooting a mixed accuracy array each weapon can hit or miss based on it's own accuracy modifier.

Stuff blows up:

Simple: If it matters consider all the damage to be energy damage.

Lance weapons and torpedoes do triple their regular damage and ignore armor (a 4k2 weapon does 12k6 -> 10k7 damage). Arrays do twice their regular damage (4k2 -> 8k4). Void shields on vehicles and stuff reduce the damage by their rating.

Heavy lance weapons put a 200m diameter crater in the ground and vaporize everything in there. They do damage for another kilometer in all direction around that. Regular lance weapons leave craters and destruction half that size.

Heavy array weapons saturate an area 4km in diameter and damage to everything within it. Regular array weapons cover an area 2km in diameter. Arrays roll damage for each weapon fired.

Torpedoes leave a crater 400m in diameter and do damage for two kilometers beyond that. Mini torpedoes have a crater and a blast radius half as big, and rift torpedoes double the blast radius.

Complicated damage models: If you want, the damage counts as both energy and explosive. In addition orgone weapons and rift torpedoes can count as magic attacks and damage.

Lance weapons do triple their regular damage and ignore armor (a 4k2 weapon does 12k6->10k7 damage). Void shields on vehicles and stuff reduce the damage by their rating.

Lance weapons utterly destroy everything they directly hit leaving a crater 50m in radius per kept die of their regular damage. Their blast radius beyond that is 200m per rolled die of their regular damage. For each the next two increments of the blast radius halve the damage.

Example: A single 4k2 cannon puts a 100m radius crater in the ground, does 10k7 = 52 for another 800m around that, the next 800m gets 26, then the last 800m gets 13 damage, and it just breaks some windows beyond that.

Sets of array weapons adds everything up, adding one for each weapon past the first. They also don't ignore armor, you figure their armor penetration by adding up all the disruptions and positive critical modifiers. Array weapons cover an area 200m in radius per rolled damage die, but each weapon adds to that radius.

Example: Two 2k2 disruption;5 crit:-3 arrays and two 4k2 disruption:0 crit:+1 arrays combine into 2+2+4+4+3=15, 2+2+2+2+3=11, 5+5+1+1+3=15, for a 15k11->10k13->10k10+15 (average ~75) strike with armor penetration 15 over an area 15*200=3000->3km in radius.

Torpedoes can be used in two modes, ground burst or air burst. In ground burst mode they work just like lance weapons, a mini-torpedo at 4k4 will leave a 200m crater and do 12k12->10k10+15 about 75/37/18 damage out to 1200m/2400m/3600m ignoring armor and being reduced by void shields. In air burst mode they work like arrays but have doubled dice, disruption, and crit modifiers instead of combined dice and stuff. They also affect an area of 300m per rolled die. An air burst rift torpedo will do 16k16->10k19->10k10+45 damage (about 105) at 8+8=16 penetration over an area 300*16=4800->4.8km in radius (plus it leaves daemons & Warp contamination all over the place).

[lightningcat]

Everything looks good, except


Divert power to engines: On the next turn the ship's speed is 150% normal +1 per two raises.


Unless you mean +1% per two raises? :)

[The Glyphstone]

Everything looks good, except


Unless you mean +1% per two raises? :)

I don't think +1% of a vehicle speed is going to do anything unless you are getting 20+ raises in a roll.

[Telok]

Goal: Language clean-up, clarity, cut down on speed stacking.

Change fighters: Range is 10x quality & speed is 5x quality. Fighter squads must be within crew quality VU to be used in support mode. Command actions only apply to fighters if within support range OR captain directs command action only to the fighters (jamming blocks this unless an arcana actions is to punch through). Instead of attacking or supporting for the turn fighter groups that are in the same spot, or perhaps adjacent to each other, may re-organize their formations to merge, split, or change squads.

changed: Adjust speed: This is a piloting crew roll adjusted by the acceleration of the ship. It can no more than double the speed of the ship.
original: piloting + accel vs. 20 => +1 && +1/raise

changed: Divert power to engines: On the next turn the ship's speed is 150% normal +1 per two raises.
original: engineering vs. 15 => extra half move along with next maneuver && +1 spd/2 raises

Default: Quality 2. #1 SP 4, accel -5, crew 24. #2 SP 12, accel +10, crew 14.
EPS, large engine, & ratings = eng+2raises, accel+10, spd+2, crew+2
96% successes
base
#1 10k2 eng: ~15 -> +2, 14k2-5 pilot: ~30 -> +3 = 9
#2 10k2 eng: ~15 -> +6, 4k2+10 pilot: ~20 -> +1 = 19
racing
#1 10k2+10 eng: ~25 -> +4, 16k2+5 pilot: ~35 -> +4 = 14
#2 10k2+10 eng: ~25 -> +8, 6k2+20 pilot: ~30 -> +3 = 25

Adjust speed: Piloting + Acceleration v 20. Cannot more than double the normal speed of the ship & +1 VU/2 raises _OR_ OK to go into reverse & -1 VU/2 raises.

Divert power to engines: Engineering v 15. Next round when you move you move extra VU equal to half the normal speed of the ship +1 VU/2 raises.

base
#1 10k2 eng: ~15 -> +2, 10k2-5 pilot: ~10 -> +0(.57) +1(.43) = ~6.5
#2 10k2 eng: ~15 -> +6, 4k2+10 pilot: ~20 -> +1 = 19
racing
#1 10k2+10 eng: ~25 -> +4, 10k2+5 pilot: ~20 -> +1 = 11
#2 10k2+10 eng: ~25 -> +8, 6k2+20 pilot: ~30 -> +3 = 25

General divert power template:
Divert to shields, engines, weapons, sensors, other.
a. For on the next round you may only make a 1/2 speed basic move&turn, weapons (except fighters) attack at -1k0 and (except for torpedoes & fighters) do -1k0 damage, shields do not regenerate, sensors tests are at -1k1.
b. On the next round
1. shields double regeneration +1d10/2 raises
2. engines +1/2 mv +1/2 raises
3. weapons damage (except for torpedoes & fighters) at +1k0 and +1k0/2 raises
4. sensors checks at +1k1 and +1k0/2 raises
5. other systems with active effects like teleportariums and/or cloaking generally ought to get increased (usually around +50%) range or +1k1 dice, with another smaller boost per 2 raises (around +15% or +1k0). Things that wouldn't believably get a boost from more energy don't work (advanced bridge design, fighter bays, ablative armor, etc.), and things that modify other rolls don't work (EPS conduits, advanced med-bay, murder-servitors).

------------------------------------

Thought: Carrier type ship. Bounty class support hull: $75, crew24, man-5, accel-5, speed4, sensors+5, 2a 1c 3e 1t 1u, 3f & 3r weap. mk4 shields $25. 4x orgone beam array $20 + 2x torp tubes [2x5 mini] $20. Consoles = (t&u)fighter bays[20f]$30, (a)imp.shields[+10]$10, (a)extended supply vaults $10, (c)rating quarters $10, (e)ablative armor & eps conduits & ref bulkheads $30. SUM: $230 = holdings 5, 26 crew (20 in fighters), +10 successful divert power, -3 crits, +10 shields, ignore first crit. Std combat: start by launching all fighters to attack, then if shields down recall fighters & flee/evade, else if shields <50% divert power to shields/evade while fighters attack &or support, else if enemy > 10vu torps OR repair/shields/medic OR evade while fighters attack, else if enemy <= 10vu shoot beams OR evade while fighters attack & support.

------------------------------------------

Sample possible space fighter for not-spaceship fighting: size 20, cost 246vp = holding1, aerospace drive, accel 0, maneuver 3, armor 10, speed 14, overcharged engine(2hp/use), 10pt void shield(micro), sensors, cockpit(micro) & copilot w/ basics, environmental seals, composite frame, multilas(micro), A4M homing missiles, feedback, hanger queen, inefficient controls, unstable. HP 6 , resil 20, 140 m/mom (87kph/mom), 25m long, def=15 @ mom=10. Optional ammo rules: A4M-H 10, mlas 80. At armor 45 & size 50 it takes 95 damage to hurt a spaceship, full aimed homing missile assuming a crew quality 2 crew for 4k2+3k1 = [email protected]:+5k5 & [email protected]:+4k4 & [email protected]:+3k3 & [email protected]:+2k2 & [email protected]:+1k1 = 7k4+30 & 20 pen -> 7k4+acc+50 v 95 -> 7k4+acc v 45 = .90*.02 + .84*.09 + .78*.27 + .56*.51 + .31*.10 = 62% chance per missile of doing 1 HP to a spaceship as a vehicle.

--------------------------------------

Vehicles Weapons: Change the vehicle heavy bolter to 4k2+0 pen6 rng120, this brings it in line with personal version. Rename multi-las to heavy-las? Add las cannon to table, 5k5+0, pen10, rng300, recharge, slots4, 20vp, actually works out in-line with rest of weapons. Note on wave motion cannon, since it now has accurate & blast roll regular damage for stuff in the blast and then roll accurate bonus damage for the target being hit. Note on missiles that their blast is relative to vehicle scale combat. If used in personal scale combat (shot at normal sized people & creatures) and they don't have a blast apply the following special blast to people/creatures only: radius as SRM=2 LRM=4 A4=6, damage as rolled but with 0 penetration and half the bonus damage, direct hits as normal. The PPC is priced as having a positive attribute but no attribute was listed, either raise the range to 350m or add Proven[1] (reroll 1s on damage). Missing the Indirect weapon attribute for the catapult, it's the ability to lob ammo over obstacles, "it's shots can pass over/around objects up to the distance from the launcher or the target, whichever is less. This can only be used with weapons that fire physical ammo (not directed energy weapons) or launch guided/homing missiles. If the ammo is not of a powered missile type then you're relying on gravity for the arc and can only shoot over things, not around them." The tandem charge attribute, when used on people & creatures that don't roll on the vehicle crit chart, causes the weapon to always cause at least 1 critical damage (type X).

Last vehicle change. Been doing math. Aerospace engines are x15, not x10, and have a minimum vehicle size of 7. Scramjets are x30, not x20, and have a minimum vehicle size of 13. This puts big engine aerospace drives into the Mach 1 - mach 1.5 range before afterburners and allows scramjets to reach almost 1/5 real escape velocity. I'm toying with the idea of adding a rocket drive that would hit escape velocity but I'm unsure of the drawbacks it should have. Of course there's whatever anti-grav is and once out of the atmosphere no drag means that top speed is limited only by the ejection speed of your reaction mass and your power supply. No, no, better idea...

Add to afterburner module => Optional rule: On a vehicle with speed 16+, using an aerospace or scramjet drive, and going momentum 10+ at very high altitudes, you can use multiple charges of the afterburners at once to achieve escape velocity from a planetary body. Up to 15 m/s gravity requires 2 afterburner charges and every additional 10 m/s gravity requires an additional afterburner charge. You only care about this rule if you really want to model a surface to orbit shuttle as a vehicle rather than as a small spaceship.

Try a vehicle missile now... Wait, wait, wait, we changed the remote controls to actually have to have a pilot/copilot station to interact with. Smallest remotes then are size 1 & $25. So accel 0(0,0), speed 9(0,1), maneuver+10(20,0), VTOL x6, remote control (25,1), overcharged reactor(10,1), ai(20,1), size 4(4,-4), subtotal = 79 vp & 4 size, external power + junker + fragile. HP 3, resil 4, cost 49, size 2m long, 360m @ mom=10, def 39 @ mom=10, function: PC speaks to AI that turns on overcharged reactor (missile takes 1 hp dmg), then makes pilot+dex (full action by remote) to hit a target up to 360m away. Damage is 4k10+(9*4)=4k4+36 ~=58 damage.

Smaller version, size 3 @ 1.5m long, trade remote piloting for better AI(5k3), add voice activated feature is 79 -1(sz) -25(rm) +20(-ai) +38(+ai) +5(va) = 71, drop maneuver to +9 (-1), external power + fragile + junker = 50. Defense goes to 40, attacks at 5k3-1 avg. ~22, 1 hp at the end of it's move (crash because no pilot & AI out of actions), does 3k3+27 damage. I'm much happier with that.

Size 7 aerospace "missile": s7(7,-7), accel 0(0,0), speed 15(0,4), maneuver+8, aerospace x15, controls+remote (25,1), overcharged engine (10,1), composite frame (5,0), ai to trigger overcharge & assist (20,1), feature encrypted remote link (5,0), subtotal $70 - junker & fragile = $50 = uncommon = buy DC 10. Size 7, resil 7, hp 3, 2250m per round, man +11, full action remote piloting @ +6 (+8man-10mom+3cf+5ai)(only @ +1 on first round) until rams or destroyed, def 52, damage 7k7+105 ~147. Rough, but it's the size of a sedan or light truck going 1350 kph. It's not like every place will have these for sale anyways, they're probably pushing... They're very similar to a manually launched guided Arrow-4 homing missile (7k4+30, pen 20, accurate, about 67+ ~7/2 raises on the hit)... well with about 16 raises on the hit.

This tells me that for individual missiles SRMs are about size 1, LRMs are about size 2, and A4s are about size 4.

Maybe set minimum speed cost as though the vehicle has 1 acceleration even if acceleration rating is 0.

----------------------------------------

Spaceships thought: Those ship's shuttles and assault shuttles. Players want to use them, that's why I initially statted up shuttle type vehicles. Obviously in spaceship combat they're effectively minions, about 1k1, def=5-10, dmg=0+raises.

For quick & dirty: VTOL & scramjets, 1/2 action to switch drive types, moves 100m/momentum on VTOL & 500m/momentum on scramjets, scramjets stall & fall at 5 momentum or less, acceleration 1 momentum/turn, static defense 1/100 meters moved, piloting checks @ -10 & -(2x momentum) in VTOL mode or -(4x momentum) in scramjet mode, size 30, resilience 30, HP 22, armor 5, pilot, copilot, power windows, cup holders, environmentally sealed (144 person-hours of air), sensor suite, 32 passengers or 64 cubic meters of cargo in any configuration, can get to orbit & back once before needing to refuel & check the heat shield (minimum 8 hours of work), the pilot has to spend a full action or a half action and a reaction on any Maintain Control & maneuver actions, if it takes critical damage roll twice on the vehicle crit chart and take the worse result, this is a Holdings 2 (or Wealth check 40 at the DM's discretion) vehicle.

To change this to an assault shuttle increase the armor to 10, reduce the passengers/cargo by half, reduce the air supply to 72 person-hours, double the refuel & repair time, any time the vehicle takes damage the pilot and copilot have to make athletics+constitution checks vs. 15 to take a level of fatigue, and add one of the weapon modules: 1) A nose mounted MP las cannon shooting anywhere ahead of the shuttle & not tracking ammo, controlled by the pilot or copilot, and 2 side mounted machine guns shooting anywhere to the sides & having 5x ammo, controlled by passengers or the copilot. 2) Two side mounted heavy bolters shooting to the sides or straight ahead controlled by the pilot & copilot, they have 5x ammo. 3) A forward facing, top mounted, LRM with 50 missiles, a nose mounted blazer that doesn't need to track ammo. 4) A rating 10 void shield and a nose mounted AC/5 autocannon (Hyper-velocity or Ultra) with 100 shots, controlled by the copilot. This is a Holdings 3 (or Wealth check 50 at the DM's discretion) vehicle.

For smaller versions reduce the size, resilience, & HP by 1/3rd, increase the static defense by 1/2, and reduce the air, passengers, & cargo by 1/2. If it's an assault shuttle you also reduce the available ammo by 2/5 (50 becomes 30) and the energy weapons that didn't track ammo now have 60 shots.

I suppose that you could ditch the VTOL drive for something else. Improve some system, add a few more people, or just change it for another type of drive (walker might be amusing). But then you're going to need that long, long runway for it to take off. A purely civilian shuttle might do that to cram in a few (+50%?) more people. But frankly I don't see the PCs wanting that at all.

--------------------------------------

You know what? While this bloody program takes 5+ minutes to compile every time I check or try to debug I'm going to go ahead and work through the first book's setting chapter. Mostly because I need to get on my home computer for a few hours in order to collect all these changes into a coherent document, and that hasn't happened for more than a week now. I just don't know when I'll have an opportunity to do that.

[Telok]

Setting stuff from the first book:

Intro blurb with a batch of nothing really.

History of the wheel... That text is in all caps except for the 'h's. It looks really odd and I can't tell if it's intentional. I have run across other instances of things not being properly capitalized though... Ok, it's intentional or the exact same mistake is made in all the headers in the book.

Setting history. Something almost no player will ever read, reference, or use, except to complain after some bit of ignorance bites them in the butt. It's 4 pages with pictures, about 3 1/2 pages too long for most people.

40k years ago the Syrne show up, be awesome, make portal relays, fight C'tan, then they all die. There's a weird note that the C'tan are powerful incorporeal beings of pure energy that exist "solely in the material universe". I have no clue what that means. Syrne created eldarin, orks, and dragons to fight. C'tan enslaved elemental creatures on pure order, putting them in geometric shells of necrometal, giving rise to the Modrons. Then it all ended mysteriously with no good records and some myths about "Great Devourers", Syrne all dead, C'tan went away, Modrons in "stasis" in Mechanus.

10k years ago... So did that first bit take 30,000 years to hash out or did it actually end relatively soon after it started and everyone just went stupid for a long time? Geh. 10k years ago eldarin are repairing portal relays and discovering Sigil & LoP. The dragons create the dragonborn and conquer everything for Bahamut. "Soon" Tiamat appears, dragons schism, civil war, all that good stuff. Tiamat is defeated on Mount Celestia after having apparently taken the fight literally to and through the gates of heaven. And... now there's no more empire for some reason. Geeze, even the Romans managed to hang on better than that after Rome got sacked, and they lost.

7000 years ago (apparently that whole thing took 3000 years? Isn't that about as long as the ancient Egyptian pharaohs lasted?) eldarin keep repairing portal relays an open Pandemonium, releasing the aboleth into the universe. It seems this caused a war for which the gods had to go create aasimar, teiflings, power armor, bolters, and chainswords. Aboleth were sealed back into Pandemonium, that portal relay was disabled, and people stopped letting the eldarin open relays. I will note here that none of the is mentioned in the Pandemonium write-up or the aboleth minster entry. I have been "doing it wrong" and I don't care, or else this is just another instance of "no professional editing".

5000 years ago the eldarin, who were apparently the unmentioned rulers of the universe since the dragon empire offed itself, sank into hedonism and started worshipping Slaanesh. Oh, wait, they worshipped hedonism and created Slaany which punched a hole in reality that created the Abyss (which is also apparently a crystal sphere with a syrne portal relay?), killed all the elf gods but Corellion, and generally got them smacked down. The eldarin did the schism thing and ended up with eldarin in giant spaceships, elves on planets, and dark eldarin worshipping the "demon spider queen" Loth while generally making a nuisance of themselves as small time pirates.

1000 years ago (either that previous bit took a long long time to play out, it happened really recently, or there's ~3500 years of nothing happening) eldarin, squats, dragonborn, and elves formed a ruling council in Sigil, split into factions, and sank into in-fighting. Assimar and tieflings are apparently hired, in mass on a racial basis, as some sort of pair of competing law enforcement organizations who mostly shoot at each other. This. This is why you can't buy fire insurance in Sigil except from the halfling mafia (ok, the halfling mafia is non-canonical, but I'm set on the arson insurance).

In current events humans showed up, using syrne ruins and recovered tech to bootstrap themselves into space and learn about portal relays. They met the eldarin and wiped out a fleet which caused the council at Sigil to welcome them as right good noobs you could lure into tourist traps and sell Sigil-brand LoP bobble-heads to. And... then everyone is exploring, plotting, scheming, or just openly at war with one another.

It is now canonical in my games that Lady-of-Pain bobble-heads are covered in razor blades and count as Raven Queen holy symbols. Flashing one about in Sigil is discouraged. It's not illegal, it just gets you skinned & deboned while alive. Very discouraging, that. Naturally the halfling mafia has cornered the LoP bobble-head smuggling market.

[Telok]

Oh, something that came up in our spaceships stuff. What sort or internal sensors / monitoring / surveillance is available? Also doors, locks, safety, and stuff. I have the feeling that these can probably equate to crew quality (well, #4 probably gets skipped in non-military & non-authoritarian ships). Different areas can, of course, have different levels. A massive space station might have #5 for the ultra rich, #3 for the workers, and #1 for a "scum & villainy" section.

1. None. Well there are probably intercoms scattered about, mostly at or near workstations. But you're dependent on your crew verbally reporting status updates to the bridge to keep up on what's happening. Most commonly found on multi-kilometer long spaceships and stations where the technology level is uneven and internal security isn't a concern for reasons (budget and incompetence, usually). You may encounter motion sensing sliding glass doors, electrified portcullises, and decorative hand carved wooden doors. Airlocks, pressure doors, and fire-proof doors may be in short supply. The ship or station may not even be compartmentalized to limit damage.

2. Fire suppression, air pressure, oxygen levels, hard radiation. A certain minimum of safety rules are in effect here. There are at least intercoms, fire alarm controls, and air/rad readouts at major corridor intersections. Airlocks and self sealing pressure doors are standard at all section bulkheads, if not at every compartment bulkhead. Any elevators are effectively airlocks, all stairwells have self sealing pressure doors & hatches at all points & levels. The bridge, damage control stations, and engineering/life support all have ship-wide access & readouts of the sensors.

3. Smart-home with video conferencing. Like #2, but with more stuff. The basic life support & comfort systems have active sensors and provide constant feedback. The ship's computer(s) knows which lights are on, off, and burnt out. It knows how far past the 'best by' date the yogurt in the breakroom refrigerator is. An alarm will be triggered if the sound of running water is present in the bathroom for more than a couple minutes and it isn't the shower. There are baby monitors in the nursery, security cameras in the secure areas & major corridor intersections, and basic burglar alarms on the external airlocks. All of the intercoms also have video feeds and can be activated from the security offer's station(s).

4. Alpha Complex. Color coded security areas, security monitors & badge reading restricted access doors everywhere, automated laser turrets in some places, and the urinals check to make sure that you're taking your assigned meds. The computer running it is either an AI or so close that you can't tell the difference. Very 'nanny state with guns' as long as someone is replacing broken switches and sensors. Weirdly the maintenance hallways and interstitial spaces tend to be completely unmonitored and un-automated. Likewise the exterior hull and hatches may not be monitored, or only lightly monitored with low-res cameras. This usually includes #2, at least as long as the people running things aren't bat-poop-crazy paranoid control freaks who care more about following orders and loyalty then about making sure the air purifiers don't poison everyone because ordering new filters might unfairly burden the engineering section's budget.

5. Fully secure & safe. Like #4 but run by sane & rational people, and probably not with a potentially crazy unregulated AI in charge. Every door doubles as a fire-proof automatic pressure door. Almost certainly there are no automated laser turrets, at least not outside the brig & the armory, and those have to get permission from a real person in order to start shooting. Cameras & badge readers nearly everywhere, full video & motion sensor coverage of the hull, and an actual biometric double-airlock security post at the main exterior airlocks. If privacy is a concern then at a minimum the hallway & living area video-intercoms aren't watching you by default. All the data feeds are normally put through a filter that only saves events matching safety & security triggers, things like the sound of gunfire or images of someone stabbing someone else. If the urinal is checking your hormone levels it probably just sends you an email telling you if it found something, it doesn't trigger an alert to have security goons drag you off for interrogation and/or medication.

--------------------------------------------------

The great wheel. Thousands of crystal spheres in astral space. Arranged in a spiraling wheel with Sigil at the center. Interesting, you could use a generic spiral galaxy as a map model then. Mostly unexplored.

The astral sea. Empty space, colored "bubbles" of crystal spheres. Spelljammers can crash into them & wreck with bad navigation. Frankly that's like crashing into Jupiter. If you can't see it coming in time to turn, then you have bigger problems than just something being in your path. No FTL in astral space, the fastest ships take years at a minimum even to cross between "close" crystal spheres. But it's also safe because there's nothing out there (except apparently crashing into rogue crystal spheres the size of solar systems because you didn't see it coming).

The portal network. The syrne built giant portal relays that let you get into the warp. Going through the warp cuts time from years & centuries to weeks. Unprotected stuff in the warp is torn to shreds in minutes. Sigil is a fixed point & navigation beacon in the warp. I think this is all the information that we'll get about the warp portals & crystal sphere/astral space barrier.

Spelljamming ships. A mix of sorcery & tech, ratios depending on the original builders. Make travel possible. Oh, apparently true dragons can naturally escape gravity wells, "crack a crystal sphere", and travel the warp. Ships can take decades to travel between two close crystal spheres if they don't use the warp. Also human, eldarin, and ork ships look different.

The warp. A parallel universe underlying physical universe. Infinite and composed of energy, elemental matter, random thoughts, emotions, memories, and beliefs. Source of magic, sorcerers bring bits of the warp into reality to make things happen. Make travel between crystal spheres much faster. Enter through a portal, navigate by Sigil. Looking into the warp unprotected causes people to go insane. If the ship's protective fields fail warp creatures invade to kill & corrupt everyone/everything aboard. Without a navigator only jumps of less than 5 light years can be attempted, longer jumps completely randomize the destination. Jumps take about 2 weeks by ship time, regardless of the actual distance. They normally take months up to a year in the real world. That, um, sort of makes any sort of coordination and scheduling impossible. Although I suppose it would lead to the creation of gigantic super-carriers that are just frames with drives & shields which you could attach a number of smaller ships to. Then you'd only need one really good warp navigator for a whole fleet. I hear echoes of Traveller and BattleTech, both systems implemented something like that.

The umbra, AKA shoehorning in a WW setting bit along side a WH40K setting bit via a D&D setting bit. The "shallow end" of the warp. Actually pretty much like the a combo if the original D&D ethereal plane and shadow plane, like a reflection of the real world with really dark sunglasses on. Ghosts and daemons can wreck stuff in the umbra, that gives it bad luck in the real world. Some spirits and daemons can cross back and forth.

Next up: Sigil.

[Telok]

Sigil.

Center of the cosmos, beacon for warp navigation, Lady of Pain, no gods allowed, standard import from Planescape. Free floating space platform outside of all crystal spheres (thus it's in astral space), gigantic inner-tube/torus with a packed city-scape on all of the inner walls. Uses lots of the same tech as portal relays so it's a presumed syrneth artifact. Neutral ground but not non-violent. Anything can be found/bought. Harmonium army maintains order. barely contained anarchy. Sounds like a fun place if you're rich and/or overly violent, perfect for PCs.

Sigil's factions. Political party / philosophy / union / guild / gang / whatever's, but not governments. Factions make up the Sigil council, governments (which ones? where? who?) donate military forces and equipment to the council. There used to be (3) more factions but LoP smooshed them for getting uppity. Most factions run different bits of Sigil. They don't trust each other.

In a faction. Namers are the noobs & low end task runners. Most hold regular day jobs and only do faction stuff occasionally. Next up is factotums, whose regular day job is faction stuff. They're still low end, just busier. Or not, since the next 'rank' is 'factor' that's apparently just the level below the highest rank. Uh, 'great sway' and represent the faction at public and official events. Top of the heap is factols, they just do leader type stuff. That's, um, a really flat hierarchy. You have a CEO, lots of department heads, then bunches of wage slaves and independent contractors. I feel that there's a missing middle-management layer in there somewhere that lost out because the author couldn't figure out how to make it sound sexy.

Believers of the source/Godsmen. Reincarnate and keep reincarnating and pass tests and more reincarnation to ascend to the next world, but nobody knows what the tests are. Leader named Ambar. All welcome. HQ at "Great Foundry". Settle disputes and keep peace between different religions.

Bleak cabal/Bleakers. There is no meaning or plan to the universe, and apparently no form of afterlife either. Leader named Lhar. All welcome. Runs soup kitchens, orphanages, and sanitariums. New personal canon for my games: If you show up at a Sigil pharmacy, any pharmacy anywhere, and flash a Bleaker badge they hand you a bottle of antidepressants, no questions asked, no payment required. It's easier than cleaning up after you blowing your brains out in front of the shop.

Doomguard. All die. Don't bother fixing things, they'll just break again. Don't bother breaking things, it'll happen eventually. Leader named Pentar. HQ at the Sigil armory. Quote "she makes sure weapons get to where they can do their work best." Seriously? The nihilistic downers who like to hand out weapons and mass destruction like it was tokes at Woodstock are in charge of the armory? What do you do? Go to the armory drive up in a beat-up old car, say "I know someone who needs shooting real bad.", and they just hand you a heavy bolter and some belts of ammo?

Dustmen. Quote "don't believe in life." Oh, great, there wouldn't be pain and suffering if everyone was dead. I bet they get along great with the Doomguard. Duster: "This sucks. Everyone needs to die." Doomy: "Have a rocket launcher. It's on the house." Duster: "The orphanage down the road has a wood frame. Could I get a flamer instead?" Doomy: "Have two! And here's some grenades for the road." Leader named Skall, supposedly a vampire. HQ at "the Mortuary". Apparently they mostly do burials, cremations, and assorted corpse clean-up.

Ok, we're all of 4 factions in and already 3 of them are all doom & gloom moaners. Plus one apparently just randomly ships weapons to anyone who'll use them. Let's see how much more dysfunctional this can get.

Fated/Takers. There is no luck, everyone makes their own fate, hard work works, if you didn't succeed it's your fault, if you have cancer it's your fault. They do record keeping and tax collection. Leader named Duke Rowan Darkwood. No other info except that they're pretty much universally hated.

Fraternity of order/Guvners. Laws, laws, laws, laws, use loopholes, find exceptions, knowledge is power. Leader named Haskar. They run all the courts and have all the good lawyers.

Harmonium/Hardheads. The Harmonium is always right and if they aren't they will will beat you up until they are. Excessively violent law enforcement, for a flexible and self-serving version of "law". Leader named Sarin (sarin gas?). And apparently the Doomys don't give them enough weapons that they can enforce all the orders they want to, probably because then they'd make the Doomys stop giving weapons to everyone else. I guess they mostly take guns from the people the Doomys give guns to. It must be the ammo supply keeping them in check.

Mercykillers. Justice, law, purge the evil, cleanse with fire, no crime unpunished. Hey, at least they recognize that separating the innocent from the guilty is a thing. Leader is Ailsohn Nielsia, a bloody thirsty psycho child. How the heck did that happen? Do these people have any sort of real organization and decision making structure, or are they just a bunch of vigilantes who follow the person screaming loudest?

Sign of one. You are a special flower. Ah, philosophy, since you only know what your senses report you can't really know if anyone else in the world is real or just a figment of your freakish imagination. HQ at the Hall of Speakers. Make laws, settle feuds, do treaties, bureaucracy stuff. Leader named Darius who is, amazingly, apparently a normal and decent person who can separate their work from their personal issues/opinions.

Society of sensation/Sensates. Important faction, massive membership, experience everything... These people are just a front for Slannesh aren't they? Leader named Erin. They run the "Civic Festhall", which seems to be a sort of mega-mall devoted to any and all forms of entertainment.

Transcendent order/Ciphers. Action without thought, but not like drunk action without thought, more like premeditated & thoughtful action without thought. Or just go with the flow. Leader named Ryhs, tiefling. Advisors and diplomats. That seems rather odd. Zen diplomacy? How the heck to you use this in a game?

Verdant guild. Save the wilderness or civilization is doomed! Hilarious in an artificial habitat. You have to wear an animal mask. They run the markets and do customs checks on incoming stuff. Rare and illegal plants & animals are a no-no. Is fungus OK? Leader named Strongbow, elf, unhappy and would ditch the job if he trusted anyone to do it competently. That's more than we've gotten on any of the other leaders. HQ at the Sorting House, which is a customs check with scanners and stuff.

So what do we have. A mega-city of unknown size inside a torus. Gravity, rotation, lighting, defenses, population, sewer systems, etc., are all unstated. There are apparently several different ways to settle disputes, heavily armed vigilantes running amuck, at least three rule/law making bodies, Oliver Twist style social safety nets, Judge Dredd &OR WH40K inquisition style law enforcement, the Unemployed Philosophers Guild got employment as civil servants and advisors, a Slannesh cult running the all the entertainments, and Greenpeace is running customs & food/health inspections (why do I think Sigil is unofficially & unwillingly vegan?). On top of that there's people giving out weapons based on the metric of "who will use them most". Oh, and it seems that the tax department has a really really really bad PR department. Like a "if you work in the tax department you can't buy any insurance for anything" bad PR department.

Who are the governments supporting all this? Why bother? I'm sure someone nearby could run a perfectly nice trading space station that's actually not on the edge of total self-destruction... Ok, new personal canon for my games: The four or five spheres closest to Sigil all have nice, safe, clean, reliable, rational, trading mega-stations right next to their warp portals. The taxes are a little higher, nobody is handing out weapons of mass destruction or trans-shipping mega-containers of 10,000 murder-robots, and you can buy a real meat burger at nice legal price. The PCs won't care because the people there want to buy and sell stuff like grain futures and tractor parts. The PCs will go to Sigil because that's where, even if they have to shell out $3500 at a halfling mafia illicit BBQ for an overcooked 8oz steak, they can buy all the boom-boom and combat drugs they want. I'll just set a repeating 10 minute timer and roll on the "bung-hole of the universe mega-city" lol-violent random encounter chart.

[lightningcat]

As for space stations having different security settings for different areas, that sound a lot like what Babylon 5 had. Downbelow had #2, most of the station had #3, while the diplomatic and military areas were #5.
Compare that to Star Trek's Deep Space 9 station, which originally was #4 as it was a slave labor facilty for a warlike race. When first taken over it was a mess of #1 and #2, with a few traps left over. Later on, it settled into #3, with maybe some #5 areas, but those were more often seperate ships or the docks to them.



Who are the governments supporting all this? Why bother? I'm sure someone nearby could run a perfectly nice trading space station that's actually not on the edge of total self-destruction... Ok, new personal canon for my games: The four or five spheres closest to Sigil all have nice, safe, clean, reliable, rational, trading mega-stations right next to their warp portals. The taxes are a little higher, nobody is handing out weapons of mass destruction or trans-shipping mega-containers of 10,000 murder-robots, and you can buy a real meat burger at nice legal price. The PCs won't care because the people there want to buy and sell stuff like grain futures and tractor parts. The PCs will go to Sigil because that's where, even if they have to shell out $3500 at a halfling mafia illicit BBQ for an overcooked 8oz steak, they can buy all the boom-boom and combat drugs they want. I'll just set a repeating 10 minute timer and roll on the "bung-hole of the universe mega-city" lol-violent random encounter chart.

With a group of dedicated murderhobos, would they even notice anything was off?

The factions are unlikely to have have been given any of their duties, so much as picked them up because some leader thought they could do it, and no one could stop them. In some ways the factions of Sigil remind me of the Guilds from MtG Ravnica, although in Ravnica someone spent at least a few minutes figuring the plan out ahead of time. In Sigil, the plan was made up 15 minutes after it could have been used, and has only gotten more out of date as they attempted to revise it on the go. It is imposing order on a city where successfully doing so will get you killed, possibly by the LoP. She rarely cares about anything, but she is well named for those moments she does. (And yes, I know Sigil came way before Ravina.)

[Telok]

With a group of dedicated murderhobos, would they even notice anything was off?

Lets lean into this a bit. The almost-ecoterrorists run customs, food & health inspections, and regulate (such as it is) the retail & grocery sector. It it demonstrably healthier for an ecosystem if people aren't eating lots of meat. There's a molassis cartel and the halfling mafia smuggles molassis in multi-tonne shipments, it's not a long jump to pork smuggling. (Long story involving failed piracy and a stint in a penal battalion.) The PCs are likely to hit up Sigil a lot because they like to buy heavy artillery. PC ships lose crew to combat and... command decisions... So the PCs will be hiring crew in Sigil.

Given a choice between buying a rift torpedo and resupplying with meat instead of flavored soy products we know which one they'll likely take (the boom-boom). Then they complete a 3 to 6 month cruise with combat and no real resupply. The DM mentions the crew grumbling about the steady diet of veggie burgers. They return to Sigil for repair & more boom-boom. The DM mentions some difficulty hiring quality crew and asks if they want to downgrade. The PCs immedately search for meat. This leads to the mafia BBQ speakeasy & a well timed police raid. Hilarity ensues.

They might notice. It probably depends on how surreal your combats can get, I've thrown hippo size drop-bears and daemons in need of interior decorators at my players. The last time I was involved in a running gun battle over food was a Shadowrun game some years ago.

Still, more setting stuff.----------------------------------

Crystal spheres.

Natural barriers between the planetary systems and the void of the astral sea. Theories include because of conflicting energy or friction or like pearls. No precise/canonical reason given. Physical laws within a sphere can vary. Examples include "fluidic space", different or reversed time, and matter cannot exist. Most spheres have only a single system in them, mostly with a star(s) and planets. They're generally twice the diameter of the orbit of the furthest out planetary type body. The crystal sphere barrier is "dangerous to even attempt to cross without a proper navigator and a spelljamming ship.", which is complete hooey if you're using the second book that doesn't even mention the barrier much less have a roll for it.

Notable crystal spheres.

Each sphere gets an intro blurb, and description of the local physics, a paragraph or so about the inhabitants, a list of notable places, and three or four adventure hooks. I've used several of the hooks, they work just fine as bare bones starting point ideas.

The Abyss.

Blurb: "A huge blight like a diseased eye visible from every corner of the astral sea", and therefore just as valid a navigational reference as Sigil. Largest sphere of all, uncountable numbers of worlds within, also storms of gas and vapor. "Every world is horrible, mutable, and different." Natives are servants of chaos. Translation: Everyone in here is a daemon, tiefling, or mutant. A single "fortress-world" built around the only portal relay in/out of the crystal sphere stops most ships from escaping and "chaotic currents" make non-portal exits dangerous... In the first paragraph of the first sphere we've contradicted or muddied the entire purpose, position, and form of both the portal relays and the sphere barrier/edge. Great work guys. Great work.

Physical conditions: Hostile. You'd have to be insane to want to go there. There's always someone dumb enough to think it can't be that bad. Larger inside than outside (and it's about the biggest thing outside anyways), probably infinite in interior size. The warp overlaps and intrude into real space within the sphere. Which should, come to think of it, make travel out of it much simpler since you don't have to leave the sphere or use a portal to get into the warp.

It's pretty much impossible to predict what any particular spot will be like. Physics and magic can vary wildly, sometimes within walking distance. Some places aren't obviously hostile but steal memories, cause super cancer & mutation, or just make you start worshipping a chaos power. Yay (not really) random alignment tests. Rumored places include planets made entirely of flesh eating insects, making your soul literally visible to the naked eye, and cold that freezes thoughts instead of bodies.

Interior space is mostly thick nebula in technicolor blarf, random small stars, planets orbiting a or just wandering, and really low all around visibility & sensor ranges. There's no umbra, just a straight overlap with the warp. Incorporeal creatures are corporeal here (I bet that messes with the wraith exalt type is all sorts of fun ways).

Inhabitants: Ghosts, elementals, spirits, and daemons are common fauna. No native mortal sapiens (actually it says sentients but look at the difference in definitions, I'm pretty sure they meant sapiens). No word on the flora. Most tieflings are newly made from idiots who wandered in and won't live to escape.

Locations:

Cadia: Not a world but a world sized fortress. Built on the only known safe route out of the crystal sphere. Some parts of the fortress are 10k or more years old... Checking... So that's after the syrene/c'tan war and during the dragon empire while the eldarin were repairing the portal network and 5k years before the Abyss was created. Great continuity work there numb nuts.

There's people there to give last rites to those going in and to inspect & decontaminate those coming out. It's a military outpost with civilian service infrastructure incorporated into it. It gets randomly attackd by fleets of daemon ships or something every so often. It's kind of vague on who/what exactly could be in there (and be organized enough) to try a mass break out.

Fortress of khorne: Mighty fortress. Brass citadel in the center. Mountain of skulls inside that Khorn uses as a throne. Moat of boiling blood. Random idiots wander in to challenge Khorne to combat. I think there should be someone in a little booth out front that hands everyone going in a Darwin Award.

Battlefield of malal: Daemons here take on the aspects & powers that intruders most admire. World changes to become more familiar and deceptive. The more an intruder cares for something the more dangerous to them that the thing gets. More intruders at once makes everything against them stronger. People going it alone may be able to reach "The Tumor" where broken doomsday machines and busted world destroying weapons lay around. Also, Malal might want to kill you. Frankly I think this would work better if the planet busters weren't broken.

Garden of nurgle: Clouds of flies, rotting fungus, dying trees, mud rivers, bad smells, random diseases. Rotting mansion that will never fall where Nurgle does something with an ocean sized cauldron. Does Nurgle swing a 3000km long spoon at annoying spaceships?

Palace of slaanesh: Six worlds to visit in a certain order, each does a different temptation to trap you forever, then you get to the palace and seeing Slanny instantly destroys your soul & enslaves you. So what's the point?

Maze of tzeentch: Bizarre and incomprehensible maze of magic portals through space and time. Secret entry points all over the abyss. No daemons, just illusions and insanity. Impossible fortress at the center, mortals incapable of gaining entry, powerful servants may get to a hidden library. Yeah, not going to run that, it just sounds like a nuisance. I've run 4d dungeons, they're extra work to keep from annoying the players too much and way, way, too much work to explain to people who can't visualize a hypercube or such-like.

Adventure seeds: People are smuggling our artifacts made of solidified warp energy. Cultists kidnapped someone and are hauling them to off to sacrifice directly to their god which might cause a mass breakout attempt. A second inactive and undefended portal relay is discovered near by. Cadia has giant black pylons that suppress the warp and magic near them, nobody knows what they are or how they work.

Summary: Well we now have all sorts of contradictory stuff about how crystal spheres, warp portals, and spelljamming work. The abyss has lots of nice atmospheric prose, but not a lot that I feel I can use as a DM. Cadia might be useful if this gave me a feel for how they think the portals are supposed to work, but it just adds confusion.

Look. There's inside a crystal sphere, and there's outside the sphere. Portals are either a Babylon5 style gate into the warp or they're keeping a safe hole/passage open in the crystal sphere. Cadia then is either a fortress built on the surface of a crystal sphere that is otherwise nearly impregnable, or it's a Death Star type station with a warp gate instead of a super-laser. I suppose they could be both, but then we don't really need the astral sea as we have no way to get to it. It also opens the question of ships entering the warp from within crystal spheres.

Fine. Personally for my games, and it's reflected in the ship/travel stuff I posted, you access the warp from outside a crystal sphere. From within a crystal sphere you can only get to the umbra, unless something is very wrong and/or someone is playing with dangerous energies. This is how you know that you're near a crystal sphere when you're in the warp, there's a "shallow" spot that you can't warp/fly through. The portals then are entry/exit points to the crystal sphere, but they also have a strong warp presence that acts like a (much) lesser version of the Sigil navigation beacon. An active portals' presence makes getting in/out of the warp easier/safer, and it acts as a sort of lighthouse that helps with safe navigation. Thus an active portal means a no risk exit from the sphere, easier entry into the warp, better navigation for starting from a known & mapped point, better navigation for going to a beacon point in the warp (once you're close enough), and easier time exiting the warp at a safe & convenient distance from the sphere. I should note that for my games a crystal sphere wall blocks all communications (barring a few high level spells), since the DtD40k7e books don't say anything about it.

That makes Cadia work. The 'planet sized' is an exaggeration, but it's a bloody big fortress on the crystal sphere that controls entry/exit. The sphere wall itself is still an impenetrable barrier in the warp and nearly impossible to breach from regular space. Because inside the Abyss is the warp ships need their Geller fields up to not be randomly ripped to shreds. Since it's a manipulation of ship shields and Geller fields that punch holes in a crystal sphere you can get into the Abyss without going through Cadia (although it is riskier than usual) but you can't get out of the Abyss without going through Cadia. Unless you had someone one the outside opening a hole for you but wibbly-wobbly time in the warp, and thus in the Abyss, causes issues with rendezvous and just finding the right spot could be really difficult anyways.

To make the rest of the Abyss work... Frankly it has to have existed for more than 5000 years. So it's always been there, a crystal sphere where the interior mixes real space and the warp. Maybe it was a normal sphere until the warp get let loose in there, but it was more then 40k years ago (or maybe the syrne done clucked up something real early on and no records exist any more). The infinite or near infinite interior size is fine, in fact make it really really big and ever increasing. The exterior size doesn't increase, just to annoy people. Assume that all the 'stars' are some form of elemental/s and spirit/s, their power and size making them 'shine'. Planets are just spots that change relatively slowly and have therefore accreted matter/stuff. The chaos gods cause stability by simply having too much spiritual inertia to quickly change their natures and they sort of drag an area of that type of stability along with them. The 'nebulas' are vast clouds of things. Some are gas, some are dust, some may be insects, plants, small furry animals, loose eyeballs, spirits, free floating daemon mouths, corpses, spirits, bottles of whiskey, midiclorians and other assorted intestinal parasites, clones of the ship's crew, time-warped corpses of the ship's crew... Just, you know, stuff. Floating out in space.

[Telok]

Arborea:

Blurb: Incredible tourist trade. Ossa was terraformed into a resort planet.

Physical conditions: Binary star system, the prime is... Ok, bad editing and stupid naming combo here. Stars are 'Rah' and 'Risa' and get used in place of each other at least once. I think, ignoring the names, that prime is a large hot white star and the secondary is a small cool orange star that used to be a gas giant. Evidence that the secondary was lit up ala 2010 movie by the syrne.

Three planets. Middle planet is Ossa and the terraformed paradise resort. Inner planet is off limits to all but native elves and specifically invited guests, on pain of "make you sorry you were born". It's Endor with all the fauna replaced by dire Earth-type animals, dire wolves, dire trout, dire hummingbirds, dire ants, dire elephants, etc. Third planet is constant dust storms, thin air, and a strict quarantine. There's a secure settlement with high secrecy, rumor connects it with the failed terraforming project for that planet. Everything else is fancied up, colorful nebulas, nice gas giant, pretty moons.

Inhabitants: Elves descended from eldarin. Also lots of nature spirits and elementals. Apparently there are lots of parties on the second planet just to keep the fairies placated and not constantly pranking the tourists with gravity grenades or something.

Locations:

Realm of corellion: Somewhere generally on the first planet there's a god wanking around. Because it's the god of being more awesome than you it's considered bad luck to praise anyone's skill at anything lest the god pops in and shows everyone up. That sort of crap gets old. For some reason corellion never leaves the planet.

Aumaan: Hidden military facility on the third planet. Built around a massive syrne ruin containing guns, ammo, lost tech, and piles of a super rare ore that has psychoactive properties and is used on warp portal construction. Which ore is apparently being used to build massive humanoid war machines for no good reason. Great, WH40k titans built out of an unobtanium plot device metal.

Gilded hall: Super pretty tourist trap on the middle planet that some people are unable to leave because it's too pretty.

Tribe of tribes: Secret society of werewolves meeting spot. Apparently everyone on the planet knows about the secret society, meaning it's probably more like an invitation only club that doesn't get talked about much and has an unlisted phone number. Inducts new werewolves and settles disputes. Sounds like the leader is mostly too busy keeping the bloodshed to a minimum to really accomplish anything.

Master weather control: Team of thousands, controls weather on second planet, leader is bored... And absolutely no mention of where it is. Orbiting space station? Lunar base? Underground bunker? Giant skyscraper? Magic hut in the umbra? N-dimensional space in a portable hole stuffed behind the sink?

Adventure seeds: Anyone remember A Midsummer Night's Dream? Shakespeare? Apparently that bloody flower grows on Ossa. Except it doesn't need nectar dripping in anyone's eyes, just smelling the pollen will do. Heck of an allergic reaction to trigger. Fountain of youth & health on the first planet nut it moves around in annoying ways. Elves are experimenting with BTL (BetterThanLife: direct neural induction pleasure simulations) on some tourists and now they're falling over dead when they wake up. Just a few thousand tourists, no biggie. Unknown pirates using giant flying humanoid war machines start raiding nearby spheres.

Summary: What an annoying place. I mean, I could run stuff there but you're basically stuck with xenophobe elfy Endor land having a wandering jerk god and a werewolf club, shenanigans in a nice tourist trap, and a pathetic dustball planet with one interesting spot that's full of shoot-to-kill military troops. Mind, I think a clever player could abuse Corellion as long as you didn't do it too often. "Gosh, you're so amazingly awesome at disemboweling yourself! You're, like, the most skilled person at self-gutting with a chainsword ever!" Although come to think of it gods aren't exactly stupid so you may get unexpected results depending on it's sense of humor... I wonder how many Cory spawned demi-gods are wandering around as the result of random 'a good time was had by all' comments. Ok, that could by a funny (mature audience only) adventure. Infiltrate the first planet and collect 'god-pollen' without unintended side effects.

[Telok]

Arcadia:

Blurb: Breadbasket of the wheel, two massively terraformed farm worlds, event the seas are redesigned for food production.

Physical conditions: Predictable. Predictable orbits, weather, sun, normal physics, people, wildlife. All nice and normal. Really, it is. Ignore the guy behind the curtain. Also there's no problems as long as you fit in and obey all the rules. All the rules. The planetary militia apparently enforces everything, including those 'keep off the grass' and 'no spitting' signs, quickly and harshly. They're much more iron fist than velvet glove. Also sorcery is frowned upon. It sounds like it's the 'shoot first and don't bother asking questions' kind of frowned upon too.

Depending on who you ask there are, or were, three planets. There are definitely at least two. The locals say that the still hot & unsettled debris field in the third orbit is natural and has always been there. They apparently believe it too. The militia ships are there to keep people safe, by shooting anyone going within several light-seconds of the hot radioactive mess. Besides, the other two planets are flat, calm, and happy. Much more interesting than rumors of massively screwed up mind control sorcerery.

Inhabitants: Pretty much all species, including halfings and assimar. All happy & working together. Even the livestock is happy to line up on it's own accord to be slaughtered.

Locations:

Abellio: Freaking cue-ball farm planet. Apparently the total height difference across the whole planet is less than 100m above sea level. And it's all a perfectly orderly farm (oceans included).

Buxenus: Like Abellio but with really restricted access. You either get an invite or a red tape runaround if you want to visit. The militia HQ is there and, supposedly, re-education camps.

Great mirror: A great mucking multi-thousand km diameter frame with reflective panels. It basically eliminated night on Abellio to increase crop yields.

Nemausus: An interdicted and sorcery tainted debris cloud. The locals and their records maintain it's always been that way. Other people's records show a small trading depot planet as recently as 200 years ago. The militias give a single warning before they start shooting. Frankly even dirt-side on the other planets I'd expect it a warning go something like: "Hey you! <blam> Cease and <blam><blam> desist! <blam> Stop <blam> and surr-<blam>-ender! <blam><blam><blam><blam><blam>".

Adventures: It's too regular and people & animals kind of seem to act like logic gates at times, obviously the milita stops anyone trying to observe or study this behavior. The destruction of the third planet may not have been an accident, but because they discovered sleeping modrons there. The second planer is so off-limits because they grow medicinal herbs there, like mind-control type medicinal herbs. Rumors that once a season there's a wild festival where they sacrifice to the gods, stuff like people who don't manage to fit in.

Summary: The PCs will never willingly go there, you'll have to lure them in or send them on a mission. Your players will have no qualms about blasting the milita & leadership (of which nothing was said anyways). Collateral damage like a complete breakdown of leaderless society, leading to complete breakdown of the totally managed ecosystems, leading to starvation and famine in six to nine months and the cessation of exports from the largest food producer in the galaxy... Well, the likely hood of collateral damage is pretty high. See now, that big honking mirror around the first planet can make some minor adjustments to act like a magnifying glass. Or a laser lens. It reflects sufficient light to mitigate nighttime across an entire planet. If it focuses all that on a point in space that a spelljammer will be passing through, then said spelljammer is soon a rapidly expanding cloud of hot plasma. And light moves faster than spelljammers. There's an XKCD about how many laser pointers on Earth it would take to make the Moon brighter if you want a feel for the amount of energy involved. Actually thinking of the orbital mechanics involved I don't think you can get away with less than 2 orbital mirrors unless you use a truly horrendously big mirror at the planetary L2 Lagrange point, and that might not work if there are any moons involved.

Well that was short. Do another.

Acheron:

Blurb: Ork empire, eternal warfare, people bring in weapons to sell.

Physical conditions: 10x larger than average crystal spheres, "airy void" instead of vacuum, gets colder further towards the center, no sun just a source less diffuse dim light not quite bright enough to read by. Thousands of "worlds" being iron cubes dozens of km across, gravity is perpendicular to the surfaces. Orks on all of them, all fighting. Orks smart enough to be leaders usually leave the sphere for more challenging fights. Deeper towards the center the blocks become an iron-like stone and are pocked with kilometer deep pits that have scraps of stuff, like spelljamming ships lost in the warp, at the bottom that are turning into more of the iron-like stone. There are fewer orks on those, mostly looking for weapons that haven't turned to stone yet to fix up and use.

The cubes tend to collide a lot, leaving km deep/long dents and scratches. Some cubes have caverns and tunnels that house what passes for civilization in the sphere. Edible fungi grow down there, water comes from ice and sleet melting off the surface (apparently the cubes are warmer than the surrounding space, probably from the kinetic energy from the collisions). For funsies time on a cube stops when it's not colliding with another cube. I don't even want to get into the long term implications of that one.

Inhabitants: Orks. Occasional suicidal fight-guys of other species waiting to die. I guess probably weapons dealers too.

Locations:

Istv...something something, the moving fortress: Made form iron and orks. Apparently if you bolt enough orks to something the size of a castle it can move. Leader is Graz-something the Wise, anyone can join his gang but he might decide you are best at carrying heavy stuff. Currently trying to build a spaceship and will probably lead the next whauuuugh out of the sphere.

Hammergrim: A grim fortified... place somewhere in the sphere, built by grim squats, to grimly fight orks. They make really good blades though, if somewhat grimly. There's a Court of Memory where all the previous ruling squats hang around as ghosts and possess the current ruler who will eventually go insane and then die and join them. that's got some squick implications in it. The current leader doesn't seem to enjoy this.

Mines of Marsellin: Seems to be one of those deeper cubes with the pits of stuff. This one apparently has better stuff that is in the process of turning into iron-stone-stuff. Run by an ancient rust colored dragon named Coirosis, hates claim jumpers and thieves. It will let you buy a deed to do some mining/scavenging. So we have some miners here too.

Tinibulus: Deeper in it becomes house size geometric shapes of volcanic-type rocks. Much denser though, like a Star Wars asteroid belt.

Ocanthus: Further in it's razor shards of black ice from cm to km in size. Tales of critters made entirely of sharp edges, people who have survived going further and come back are all insane.

Adventures: A lost indestructible syrne super-spaceship from thousands of years ago has turned up floating around in the sphere, possibly with survivors, lost tech, warp critters, and the orks (ok, everyone, but the orks are closest) want it. Maybe the cubes are a syrne ork farm meant to provide cannon fodder, what happens if someone finds out how to turn it back on to full production? The squat leader wants to stay sane but blasting the ghosts is taboo, hire some mercs (PCs) to find a solution, throw them under the bus if they're caught. There's an sun sized ice ocean/ball/thingy in the middle past the razor ice, maybe it's a prison for something, maybe the ice razors mean it's breaking out.

Summary: I can totally see PCs going here to recruit orks as followers. You can also lure them in with rumors of super-weapons in the mines/tunnels. It is apparently a place some people go to die if they're immune to old age and such. Plus you can totally tick off an ancient and powerful dragon on accident just by picking stuff up off the ground. There is no sun so any vampires are thrilled with being completely unrestrained, however there are no moons either which hoses any werewolves (assuming you haven't house ruled something in to help them).

[Telok]

Quick idea: Want to have all the uncertainty of warp travel without having to roll 5 different thing? Here's a shortcut.
1. Write down the crew quality number of the ship.
2. Does the person in the navigator's position have two of Arcana, Divination, or Intelligence higher than the crew quality? If so then add 1 to the number.
3. Does the person doing the piloting have more dots in Piloting or Wisdom than the crew quality? If so add 1 to the number.
4. Does the ship have a destiny knot and officers who will spend hero points for rerolls? If so then add 1 to the number.
5. Is the trip between two active warp portals that aren't in active war zones, not under going massive warp storms, or otherwise not suffering any major calamity? If so then add 1 to the number.
6. Is the ship part of a convoy with a total ship count of more than 8, minus the crew quality? If so then add 1 to the number.
7. Is the trip going to take weeks, months, or years? For a weeks long trip subtract 1 from the number, for months subtract 2, and for years subtract 4.
8. Are there no active warp portals involved at all? Subtract 1 from the number.
9. Is the destination completely new, uncharted, unknown, or unexplored? Subtract 1 from the number.
10. Are there active war zones, massive warp storms, or other major calamities somewhere along the trip? Subtract 1 from the number.
Finish: If the number is greater than 0 roll that many d10s, if they are all 1s roll twice on the warp encounters chart at +0 and +1 and increase the trip time by one step, otherwise just roll once on the warp encounters chart. If the number is 0 or less roll twice on the warp encounters chart at +0 and +1, then turn the number positive and roll that many times on the warp encounters chart adding another +1 to the roll each time, increasing the time taken by one step for each roll after the first.

Examples: An NPC crew quality 1 ship makes a milk run as part of a 10 ship convoy. Step 1) 1. Steps 2, 3, & 4) 1+0=1. Steps 5 & 6) 1+2=3. Step 7) Days long trip -> 3-0=3. Steps 8, 9, & 10) 3-0=3. Finish => Roll 3d10. If all dice show 1s roll twice for warp encounters, once at 1d10+0 and once at 1d10+1, and increase the time taken to months. Otherwise roll 1d10 once for warp encounters.

A PC crew quality 2 ship goes exploring way off the beaten path. Step 1) 2. Steps 2 & 3) 2+2=4. Steps 5 & 6) 4+0=4. Step 7) Months long trip -> 4-2=2. Steps 8 & 9) 2-2=0. Step 10) The DM's map has a Sargasso in the way 0-1=-1. Finish => Roll three times on the warp encounters chart. Once at 1d10+0, once at 1d10+1, and once at 1d10+2. Increase the time taken by two steps to a maximum of a years long trip.

The really really fast method. Get out dice equal to crew quality, add 1 for a really superb traveling ship (not just pure a combat ship), add 1 for PC officers that are better than the crew quality, subtract 1 for a months long voyage, subtract 2 for a years long voyage, subtract 1 for bad stuff in the way. If there are no dice left roll 3 times for warp encounters at +0, +1, & +2, then pick the worst one of those to happen and the ship is lost in the warp for years. Otherwise roll the dice. If they're all 1s roll twice for warp encounters at +0 & +1, pick the worst one, and the trip takes double the normal time. Otherwise just roll once for warp encounters at +0.

Back to the setting -> Baator.

Blurb: Nine different worlds, sinister but not lawless, absolute chain of command, discipline enforced to crush those who don't fit in. natives tend to do a lot of plotting and scheming.

Physical conditions: Fairly normal, one red giant star with 9 planets. Quote: "compared to some of the really awful places in the universe, Baator's creeping evil and sinister tones can seem downright homey." Normal laws of physics and safe for ship travel, obey local traffic control, traffic is pretty thick since the place attracts a lot people who want to 'get ahead'. Really, obey traffic control, it's not going to be a minor fender bender, the army is going to come down on you. Apparently you can bribe the army, or at least offer to "pay a fine" to whoever might be shooting at you.

Inhabitants: All the wrong sort of people. Natives have a long history of dangerous sorcery, daemon pacts are the only way to go up in society so all the upper crust is powerful conjurers or have them on staff. Politically important people are usually effectively immortal due to overlapping pacts, although they may not have much humanity or soul left. Mutation and corruption are common & normal. Very little wildlife, mostly subjugated and used up... Apparently the 'wildlife' was once humans that have devolved or mutated into animalistic beasts. Which seems odd if humans are relatively recent entrant into the galaxy. Maybe there was some sort of wildlife reintroduction plan going on? Maybe there were humans here early? Maybe 'humans' is just bad editing for 'assorted sapient humanoids'?

Locations: Working from closest to the sun and outwards.

Avernus: Parches and blasted rock, thick hazy atmospheres, no water, random fireballs... Um, explosive gasses seeping up through the ground that explode at the least spark. The place freaking randomly leaks natural gas from the ground all over the world? Well I guess that explains the haze, it's all basically pollution from constant gas explosions everywhere. Oh, people mine high quality gemstones here. "A city of depraved halflings called Draukari." Ruler is a tiefling named Bel, rumored to run training camps for chaos armies. People investigating such rumors all ended up dead.

Dis: Where most of the outsiders are going, gigantic hive city named Dis covering most of the landmass, made mostly of straight iron, exterior turns red hot from the sun during the day... Quick check reveals that's over 460 C or 900 F. No info on planet size or rotation, assume Earth-like with 12 hours f daylight, assume it heats up to red hot around noon so 6 hours of morning heating, thickness matters so call the exterior walls 2cm, 1m square to 200cu.cm to 157480g specific heat 0.45 J/gC, assume starting at 60 C, 400*.45*157480=28.3 million/6 hours=avg 4.7 million J/h/sq.m, call it 21 steps of 1.35 million each, so noon day sun on Dis puts out about 8 million J/sq.m/hour. What's 2250 J/sq.m/sec do? Approximate Earth sunlight as 1400 J/sq.m/sec... I want to think I screwed up somewhere. Ah well, another question for the mad science thread. The city, tightly controlled, passes for everything, visitor movement recorded, almost al visitor services in the Port Quarter anyways. At the center there's a tower, "nearly into orbit" (whatever that means), where ruler Dispater does "Edicts", and yes Edicts is capitalized. "Come down form on high like iron slabs hitting concrete." Yay! New head-canon: Dispater literally laser engraves big honking iron slabs with orders and throws them out a window. Lackeys have to rush into the landing area to recover them and hope he doesn't throw another one out with a spelling correction. The secret police naturally get a direct email of the same edict so they can immediately enforce it, leading to a certain lag time between when enforcement can start and the rest of the place gets to know what the edict is.

More tomorrow.

[Telok]

Continuing with assorted places in Baator:

Minauros: A stinking bog. Acid rain, lead runs like water (min 330 C or 625 F, ambient temp at night). The surface is a bog of acid, muck and misery, with some very tough vegetation. If a fit of un-inspiration they called the main city Minauros, and it is sinking into the bog. Leader is Mammon, warped from bargains and massively greedy. Also a 30m tall half-snake person. So this is a weird hybrid of RL Venus (literal acid rain & massive heat) and the old pulp SF Venus (jungles & weird stuff). There is, as far as I can tell, absolutely no reason to go there unless you want to kick 30m tall half-snake butt. Seriously, this summary is almost longer than the actual write-up.

Phleg-s5nu0n6u93: Unpleasant place to live. Volcanic cycle that re-paves the planet every few thousand years, cracked surface, rivers of magma, seas of flame, vast mineral wealth. Leader is Lady Fernia but really run by her father Lord Belial, mostly manage the managers & spend their lives in "incredible hedonism". In short, not worth visiting unless you're invited to a party.

Stygia: Freezing water world. Floating plants form swamps & forests in temperate zones, else giant icebergs. Constant storms & lightning everywhere. Cities and castles built on giant ice floes. Leader rumored imprisoned in iceberg somewhere from making a bad deal. Private armies of city-states enforce local laws.

Malebolge: Gas giant, looks like a diseased boil, some gas mining stations. Giant corpses in orbit, dead space whales hundreds of kilometers long, graveyard of now-extinct species. Major trade in ivory & bone products. Leader G-mjn3pd, supposed daughter of sovereign of Baator.

Maladomini: Ruins, hard labor, blood-black sky, granite and wasted cities, polluted canals. Everything natural destroyed, strip mines, landfills, & ruins cover whole surface. Ruler is Triel, insane assimar, not seen in decades, increasingly insane decrees, demands perfection. Capital city named Capitol always under construction as he keeps ordering parts torn down & rebuilt.

What the heck is up with the city naming around here? These people can never be bothered to think up actual names for their cities?

Cania: Hoth expy. Industry produces really good plasma weapons though. Leader is Mephistopheles, facade of civility, terrible temper, limitless ambition, powerful sorcerer. Developed a way to create a "warp plasma".

Nessus: Best protected, armada of ships, black & crisscrossed with rifts & trenches. Asmodeus in deepest pit. That's it. Really.

Adventures: Ruler of Stygia gets a day of freedom each year, will hire PCs to kill major daemon & free him for bug reward. Assassination attempt on Galysia & entire sphere on lockdown & military law, PCs hired by Asmodeus to find assassin or else. Warp storm erupts around Baator, prices go up & may be caused by Baator enemies. Someone approaches the PCs for help, kid has been lured to Baator with promises of hedonism, could be either mass sacrifice or just attempt to boost tourist trade.

Summary: Despite the effort put into getting the atmosphere of Baator=hellscape across, there actually isn't really anything I can use as a DM beyond Malebolge and Cania. Even then I'd need to put in lots of work making stuff up. This would have been better if they'd focused on about three places and just mentioned the others in passing.

BeastLands:

Blurb: Mysterious crystal sphere, several inhabitable planets covered in wilderness, some ruins & power signatures. Actively hostile flora & fauna that evolve in response to attacks.

Physical Conditions: Fairly normal, untouched by industry, every planet with highly evolved ecosystems. Seven planets with all nearly same ecosystem. Any kind of active scan is "almost inevitably met with a response form the planet." That response is very interesting and usually kills everyone. Ecosystems function as massive defense system from microorganisms to attacking stuff in orbit. Trees with armor shells around high energy hydrocarbon cores as ballistic missiles capable of reaching orbit, massive fields of laser sunflowers. Fauna has some mass response to intrusion that everything attacks outside stuff. No planning or hivemind, just all attack. Was one attempt to terraform one planet, once.

Inhabitants: Local wildlife. A few fast & well armed scientists who spend lots of time running away.

Locations:

Mothership: Remains of the first terraforming attempt, several km long spaceship, only a few of the thousands of crew escaped when local wildlife & microbes got on board. Now overgrown with fungus & vines that are using hull metal as part of their skins. Also, bunches of weird animals wander around it.

Sargasso asteroids: Asteroids collected at Lagrange points in the system have developed thin algae of bacteria strings connecting them (impressive given the distances involved). Sometimes they break loose to hit a ship that passes too close.

The great circle: The only ruins on any of the planets that weren't covered & destroyed by animals & planets. The ring is 20km "around" and 1.5km thick, nobody has been able to get inside.

Variable gravity well: On a moon of the system's one gas giant (it's got life too, of course) is a spot that emits lots of warp energy and changes gravity nearby. A massive pile of the largest predator type animal corpses covers it up. They all have really hard shells and it will take battleship weapons to break through. Sort of a sore point for the wildlife, anything approaching is always attacked.

Adventures: Humanoid creatures were spotted on one of the planets, a new type of critter or a suicide/survivalist cult maybe. Scientists returning home vanished after getting there and now Beastlands critters are appearing there. Research is moving towards unmanned probes, they're recording a different time passage than from that outside the sphere, like time speed up more the longer the sphere isn't opened. New unknown ships appearing in & around the sphere, using strange plasma weapons, one that was destroyed was made of non-metallic stuff, organic polymers, and strange plastics, also space monsters have started attacking nearby spheres.

Summary: This is actually useful. Granted, you'll have to make up basically every monster you encounter but you're going to be doing a lot of that anyways. Scientists hiring the PCs as muscle for ill conceived experiments or collection visits is always a good hook. Especially if the PCs are still in that weird D&D style "we always need more money. find a quest giver so we can kill and loot everything" phase. This is also a great place to experiment with having the PCs hunt baby space kaiju.

[Telok]

Bytopia

Blurb: Intense industry, two worlds, factories, industrial complexes, mines. Can supply whole armies. Fleets bringing raw materials & taking out finished goods. Contaminated enough to that the void in the sphere is in fact a thin, almost atmospheric, haze.

Conditions: Two planets left, encrusted with factories, space elevators go to solid orbital rings as docking & mass launchers (trash to sun, goods elsewhere), barely habitable wastelands of debris & toxic waste, most people live in arcologies. Free of magical hazards, normal physics, polluted enough that space is thicker than a nebula & almost an atmosphere. Remains of three gas giants and two other rocky planets, but mined out & all scavenged except scaffolding of metal not economical to scrap.

First planet Dothion, rust colored, massive arcologies with monorails & walkways, only very rich have personal transport, inhabitants properly called worker drones. Second planet Shurrock, produces generally restricted goods, stull illegal or dangerous elsewhere like lockpicks, military hardware, & spelljammer engines. Locals constantly watches, screen, and monitored for 'dangerous ideas', outsiders are restricted to specific zones & no interaction with general citizenry, enforced by shoot first policing.

Constant heavy ship traffic, possibly best traffic control systems anywhere, incoming raw materials have priority over everything else.

Inhabitants: Squats, humans, halflings, gnomes. No ecology is left on the planets.

Locations:

Ring 0: Remains of the first orbital ring built, around a planetary core of waste rock, mostly made of broken stuff that wasn't salvageable. Tradition for small independent traders to stop there at the end of a successful run. Someone built a bar called Absolute Zero, inflatable & transparent, has ruptured numerous times (my players did that too), run by an eldarin exile called Moondog, claims to like the excitement.

Last Ruby Rays of Dawn: Wrecked ship, carrying hazardous cargo that killed the crew, about a century ago. Floats in an elliptical orbit that keeps it away from other traffic, no salvage because supposed to be another century or two before people don't melt from radiation as soon as they open an airlock. 100k km no-fly zone around it, no word on what was inside that got loose. Rumors of occasional running lights & transmissions.

GWOTT HQ: Government/corporate building the size of a city. Great Wheel Order of Trade and Tariffs, polices economic activity & police to protect economic stability and take down illegal trade. Not at Sigil to keep away from the factions. So apparently we're some sort of galaxy wide trade organization with it's own private army. Rumors that it employs teams of exalts to deal with sensitive missions involving ignoring & breaking local laws.

Solar observatory #14: Well kept secret, has been monitoring an object for thousands of years. Object is probably a station, probably a syrne relic, and definitely orbiting in the hottest part of the sun's outer layers. No ships get to land because HOT! Recent scans maybe show growing activity but the whole thing should fall into the sun in a generation or so anyways.

Adventures: In one of the best protected factories on Shurrock is a legion of titanic warstriders, enough to conquer several crystal spheres, bidding starts next week, until then lots of info about them and the security setup has been leaked to a lot of the wrong people. On Dothion during mining they discovered a artificial cave complex, reported halls of black metal and stasis banks, feeling that something was waking up, then al contact was lost. Two GWOTT operatives went rogue claiming that it's controlled by merchants & aristocracy with a nefarious plan, they might be right & they might be high level exalts. Shurrock arcologies have been experimenting with mind control drugs & programming on the workers, all water food & entertainment is contaminated, there's a long term side effect of people going on psycho mass murder sprees.

Summary: This too is a useful sphere, enough detail to start stuff with, enough vague hints to give you wiggle room. If you've played or run ShadowRun this is the place for those sorts of corporate espionage things to happen. The PCs are likely to end up here simply from the fact that it's a good place to buy armored vehicles and spelljammer torpedoes. At some point I'm sure someone experimented with nanotech to try to break down more stuff for salvage on one of the old planets. Ring zero is a good spot for clandestine meetings and trades. Traffic control is probably pretty harsh, considering the possibility of some idiot shot-gunning a traffic lane with pieces of their ship if they tried to cut in line. Plus those mass drivers on the orbital rings are probably pretty good for launching a package or self-guided homing torpedoes at high velocity.

Carceri:

Blurb: A matryoshka doll of crystal spheres, all contain incredibly old stuff, each sphere is harder to get into than the last, nobody has ever reached the center. Lots of electrical storms, lighting bolts powerful enough to blast smaller spelljammers to bits, lots of clouds of debris capable of slicing through void suits and people. First few layers are relatively well explored, space between layers gets bigger as you go in (few km -> 100s km -> 10,000s km, etc.) but the next sphere is only barely measurable smaller than the previous one. Lots of syrne ruins for treasure hunters but all the easy to get to ones have been picked clean. There's no atmosphere anywhere but there is a black rain or snow of a super-acid that eats through spaceship hulls. There's some warp things all over that causes everyone who sleeps to have terrible nightmares all the time. Time gets compressed the further in you go, not just rate but possibly also separation between cause & effect getting smaller.

Inhabitants: Nobody sane would want to live there so humans tried. They failed. There at least are giant crawling scavenger beetles that eat anything and space-jellyfish that drain life force. Remember, no atmosphere.

Locations:

The vault: It's a great place for a prison. Giant black sphere station in an outer layer, one dock, no other ports or access. Nobody has ever escaped.

Rostok: Bodged together ships into a space station, probably in another outer layer. A place to pick up supplies & tips for scavenging expeditions. And people willing to buy anything useful that gets brought back out.

Shipyard x-18: Highly defended, three layers in, shoots at anyone uninvited, maybe pirate run instead of governments or maybe pirate with governments but that's just conspiracy rumors. Builds prototypes to penetrate lower layers with special navigation systems.

Agathys: 6th layer, the last one reliably penetrated & partially mapped... It reads like there's some hard navigation to get to the next layer, but that wasn't in the previous stuff? Supposedly the course changes needed are 'too much for anything but a computer' and nobody's built a ship that can make the changes fast enough.

Adventures: A group of mages used Carceri to create a new type of magic the affects time, they might be willing to share if you did something big for them. In the deepest part way past the 6th layer there's a monolith that grants wishes, of course there's a price and you may get exactly what you asked for in the worst way. In the spaces between layers there is sometimes mind music that promises stuff in exchange for hideous betrayal or murder, people almost always go for it because it promises exactly what they want. Rumors that syrne made Caceri to protect themselves & there are living syrne at the center of it all.

Summary: Reasonable useful. Send the PCs in on a fetch quest, or they could go themselves looking for loot. Trying to break someone out of jail is always a good one to pull. Not a lot of actual stuff to fight or do is listed though and trying to play up the whole 'continual nightmares' or 'promise all you desire' things will depend heavily on your group. Some find it un-fun to RP it and will whine about any mechanics that you try to hang on it. Probably the best you can compromise there is to have everyone act like they have the night terrors more-xp-for-feats thing as long as they're in Carceri. Also vamps may love it & werewolves will hate it, the whole sun/moon thing again. You probably want your PCs to be running their own ship in here, just because there's nothing real interesting about the whole layers set up without it, and that's a big selling point of the sphere.

[Telok]

Commorrarghragagragrga-blargha

Blurb: Not a real crystal sphere so we're going to piss on it...

Fine, whatever. Here ya go. Not a crystal sphere, hidden in the warp, ruled by anarchy & terror from dark eldarin, or maybe a place of anarchy & terror rules by dark eldarin (same difference), and also Lolth who may be one or several of: god, demon, daemon, spider, queen, snot. The depravity of the locals 'knows no bounds' so you ought to be able to find any perversion you like, and many many more that you don't like.

Physical conditions: Built in the warp on massive constructs called webways, kind of like the umbra being halfway between the warp and real worlds. It's also film noir land, it's literally in black and white from a color drain. Webway is a giant spider web made from weird material that might be souls, Lolth makes lots of tangly bits but there are orderly bits around there too so there could be something else making it. Inside is like being in a gigantic cavern, mild temperatures but never comfortable, dank, often foggy, dim inconsistent light, lots of neon signs at street level. Billions of kilometers of megastructure, just sits in the warp (and maybe in the Abyss too, although I blame poor editing for the confusion), ships can travel directly there once they're in the warp, pretty much impossible to track the ships of find the city. Except maybe for some dark eldarin, if or because Lolth likes them. The partial reality of the webway has effects on people and stuff. Safer than the warp & the Abyss (that's not saying much), light falls off faster, liquids are thicker, emotions are lessened.

Inhabitants: The hierarchy from top to bottom => Lolth, Lolth's daemonic minions, dark eldarin, heavily armed visitors, tortured & maimed slaves from all sapient species. This is sounding more and more like a semi-stable subsection of the Abyss.

Locations:

Daemonweb pits: Near the center, tens of thousands of kilometers across, giant palace of darksteel & mithril shaped like a huge spider (and it walks around too). Lolth hangs out there & keeps a high turnover of "trusted" servants who keep getting suspected of something & killed. Also kill worthy is talking about Lolth as if it isn't a complete and total super-power god.

Erehopwhii-Cinjirhji-blarga-blarga: Names I can't be bothered to type because the spelling is pretty much just from banging on a keyboard or something. A "kabal" in Commode-blargha, one of the bigger ones. It seems that these kabals are "self-governing socio-economic paramilitary organizations", in short "gangs with pretensions". The area is slightly less lol-random-kill-you-for-fun than most of the other gang territories. Seems they had a little "civil war" leadership upset and someone realized that the rest of the universe can provide more than just slaves & sex toys. Non-dark eldarin merchants and mercenaries actually make money here and don't always die horribly.

Menzob... Stuff it, I'm calling it "bugger face town": One of the oldest gang territories, extra slaves, a matriarchy where "social climbing" is code for assassination & torture. Visitors are welcome as tools & playthings to be used in political schemes or just killed for fun. Because it's older it's deeper in the webway and regularly attacks by stuff from the underdark. BFT is ruled by a Lolth high priestess with the usual useless name.

Underdark: Lots if Commode-blargha is random-ish labyrinths of underworks, sewers, seas, and fungus forests, all usually in pitch darkness. Populated by warp mutated critters that were once people, warp mutated people who were one critters, cannibal escaped slaves, lost pets, experimental monsters, and assorted undead. Of course our assortment of undead is currently weak ghosts, vampire exalts, lich super-spellcasters, and mook human zombies. Supposedly there's lost riches.

Adventures: The population of an entire crystal sphere vanished, blame the dark eldarin, also find someone to lead you to Commode-blargha to stop something nasty or rescue an entire planetary population, quick before they all die or decide they like it there. A powerful merchant is making a move to set up a branch in Commode-blargha and needs exalt level bodyguards, make the PCs brush up on dark eldarin etiquette. Someone organized slave revolt in the E-blargha C-blargha gang territory and now they have a price on their head, PCs get involved because that's your plot/railroad for the week.

Summary: Sounds like you could just fly a spelljammer right into it and roam around blasting away with plasma cannons. Frankly I'm finding it a bit hard to use because it's a bit over the top noir, but in a silly way. I have no idea how the PCs should be interacting with this society other than from the other end of a gun or sword. I also can't tell how getting there & back ought to work, in any form. Although I do appreciate the callback to the original OD&D bugger face town, where you could casually bump into major demons on the street and exchange pleasantries like civilized death-machines. It seems that Lolth doesn't really do anything beyond wank around in a honking big spider-mecha-palace and occasionally add bits to the webway. And of course we once again have neither suns nor moons. If the PCs go there I'll just make something up & maybe stat the palace as a super-spelljammer ship, just in case it needs to shoot at them.

Elysium

Blurb: A small group of worlds, seems like an untouched paradise, claimed by eldarin. Great, tells me basically nothing.

Physical conditions: Six pretty worlds, sort of like garden wilderness, no people-eating monsters, no poisonous plants, no rivers of fire or toxic atmospheres. Space within the aphere is cleaned up & there are no micrometeorites to scuff your spelljammer's paint job. No permanent settlements on the planets, lots of space stations & eldarin worldships though. All the planets are Star Wars style mono-biomes, in order: desert, jungle, temperate hills, temperate forest, arctic forest, tundra & glaciers. All freaking safe with near tame animals that avoid people and no real nasty weather.

Inhabitants: Wildlife, eldarins, people being shot at with lasers. Maybe, maybe, maybe a rare invited non-eldarin. Who is being watched by a sniper team at all times.

Locations:

World Harbor: A giant space station and construction yard out past the sixth planet. The only place big enough for a worldship to be built or repaired.

The Array: Networked solar arrays around the sun beaming power to the rest of the sphere. These power the world-wide underground weather control systems on all six planets. Do not annoy the people with the billion plus terawatt variable spectrum laser array capable of targeting & focusing at least 15 light minutes away.

The axis: a giant asteroid turned into a giant space station and the closest thing to a government in the sphere (actually the Array is in control, they just don't push it much). There's a leader who's an exalt of some sort. Lots and lots of highly formal meetings, described as something between a formal ball and a political debate. Boring, nothing here for PCs, at least not any group who thinks that fast hover-cycles with guns are a form of stealth.

The cradle: Another giant space station, super defended by automatic weapon systems, no non-eldarin ever allowed close. Apparently it's full of artificial wombs with baby eldarin in them. Sounds like collateral damage land.

Adventures: There's also massive catacombs under the worlds, before PCs = lots of loots, after PCs = lots of angry eldarins and ghosts and shooting. Something spawned a super-predator on one of the worlds and the eldarin hire the PCs to gank it, are the PCs smart enough to get safe passage out of the sphere written into the contract? The eldarin are desperate and need fresh DNA, the PCs get to escort an elf prince and a dark eldarin somebody to a mating, or a meeting, not sure which, of course it's bound to end in tears (really, they should just go in for cloning eggs & sperm for the bake-a-baby machines).

Summary: If the PCs can't pull off some social-fu and/or a really good heist the Array is just going to blast them. Sucks not being able to outrun light inside a crystal sphere, eh? Even assuming they're smart enough to stay in a planet's shadow the whole way that just makes them easier to plot intercept courses for. TLDR: Can the players (not the characters, the characters can absolutely do it) manage a real heist with real stealth and real social-fu type situations? The answer to that is whether or not you'll ever use this sphere.

[Telok]

Gehenna

Blurb: The sphere's physics have made all the planetary bodies into 'geothermal furnaces' but there's no unexpected changes at the personal level. Um, "four main planets like twin volcanoes hundreds of thousands of kilometers tall and joined at the bases", I got nothing, can't visualize it. Uncounted mountain-sized flaming rocks orbit around everything. The closer to the main star the more active the geology gets.

Physical conditions: There is nowhere flat in the entire system, even under artificial gravity. Nothing can remain stable and perpendicular to a gravity field in the entire system. Most artificial gravity, like on spelljammers, lists from 10 to 45 degrees off, some go further off. Most ships turn off their artificial gravity, it's just easier. Ah, they don't have proper planets, they have 'earth-bergs' and the four main ones are the tens of thousands of km tall/across "planets". Each 'planet' has mostly cleared it's own orbit but random asteroids still smash into them with regularity. Space between the 'planets' is dark and obscured, a minefield of hot rocks in dust clouds, and the sun looks like a small dull coal.

First 'planet' is called Chamada, half it's surface is molten rock at any time, extreme constant volcanic activity. Second 'planet' is Khalas, ground is still hot enough to cause wounding burns to unprotected feet but at least there's running water (probably sulfurous and near boiling like a hot springs). Third 'planet' is Mungoth, where terrain is either volcanic lava flows or glaciers, lots of steam snow & ash. In fact it sounds like the entire weather of it can be summed up by steam clouds, ash clouds, and snowstorms. Last 'planet' is Soltheim, it's a dead lump of ice, no life and nothing to see.

Inhabitants: Mostly dark eldarin, because there's stuff that is easier when you aren't in a warp tainted hellhole. Like, all sorts of living and survival. Life on the middle two 'planets' consists of fungus and insects, although a fair amount of it gets man-sized or a bit bigger and bigger equals more aggressive. Expect the local wildlife to try to kill, eat, or lay eggs in you.

Locations:

Vivec: Lifted from the Elder Scrolls franchise Morrowind game. There's a wiki for it that I think is still up, just change the water to lava and add technology to get a pre-built setting. Small arcologies connected by bridges, and in a change from the computer version the bridges are a bit slippery with no railings, because the locals think it's funny. It's almost too bad that flying cars are a thing, but you can make every taxi ride a wealth check to try to encourage walking. Don't let the PCs buy or privately operate an air-car here, it's much more fun if they walk. Elite warriors called Mandrakes act as police, or you can just import the Ordinators from the video game, it's the same thing. Justice is the kill-on-sight type and crimes are pretty much anything that annoys the 'police'. A massive temple to Lolth dominates one end of the city run by a half-eldarin half-daemon servitor of hers.

Rura Penthe: A prison on the dead ice faux-planet built and run by the human Imperium. No walls, kind of lax security, and the beatings for trying to escape are more of a formality then any real punishment. The guards don't even chase people who run off. Escapees usually die to the weather within a couple hours anyways. What the deal with the dark eldarin is that allows for the prison to exist is unknown.

Tower of the general: A high quality mercenary company operates out of a 'tower' run by an 'mysterious figure' called the General. Considered to be unusually well informed about what both sides in any conflict are offering as pay. Could be playing both sides in any particular conflict to drum up business.

Nimicri: A planetoid consisting entirely of 1cm long Von Neuman machines (chunky grey goo type scenario). They're formed into terrain, roads, buildings, and people. Pretty safe, there's some light industry where they make stuff, and enough people return regularly that there are merchant runs. Apparently the goo trades stuff that it makes for information. No real info beyond that.

Acererak's tomb: Ace-bob hangs out here, you need decently powerful magic to get around in it, lots of random murder guardians. Mostly dusty, empty, occasional bones and/or corpses, no food or water, the place is made of stone. People going in face a variety of deadly 'tests' that result in death or gaining knowledge of some sort. Ace-bob never bothers to meet people, you'll just keep getting the 'tests' until you die or go away.

Adventures: A secret temple on Mungoth traps a greater daemon and has the usual assorted death traps & puzzles, has some lesser daemons roaming around, once a century it gets to try to escape and someone is destined/called by destiny to get in and defeat the daemon each time. The implication being the it's the PCs this time. Rumors of a tribe of feral werewolves on the ice hole place, using the prison as a buffet, or maybe the guards are the werewolves. Rumors of mineable darksteel ore on the first 'planet' the one that's mostly molten, go build a lava mining operation, the locals have already blown up one attempt. Rumors that under Vivec there are caverns that are passages to Commode-blarha, someone thinks they'd be a good invasion spot, of course there are the usual terrible death traps.

Summary: I played Elder Scrolls 3 & 4. ES4 was just a generic fantasy land adventure, really nothing to use in a TTRPG. But ES3 had places and plots that were cosmopolitan and non-generic enough that they could be used, the adaptation of VIvec city to DtD40k7e is pretty straightforward. There's not really enough information about off-planet stuff, you'll have to make all that up, and the mercenary but is weak. But Vivec and the city are useable with very little DM prep work. Vivec makes for a decent place to have a 'society-with-no-morals' event or adventure without having to deal with Commode-blargha.

The grey waste

Blurb: A large and easy to navigate place right at the half way point between the Abyss and Mount Celestia. It is thus a continual order vs/ chaos battleground... Except that stuff can't really get out of the Abyss without going through the one fortress exit? There was certainly nothing in the Abyss writeup about armadas of troops wandering past on a regular basis. Any ways, all the planets have been blown up and all that's left are lots of messy asteroid fields. There's a useless reference to an "endless Blood War" here. You get the feeling that these were written by different people who didn't really talk to each other and maybe had different drafts (or none at all) of the game to work off of. Suffice it to say that this doesn't work with the Abyss as presented, especially that "it came into being less than 5000 years ago" bit.

Physical conditions: Three stars, all small & pale white, and no color at all. Everything is literally like a black & white movie, it's an effect of a variation of the physical laws of the sphere. Plays merry havoc with color coded emergency lights & controls too. Also the sphere causes "waste syndrome" which is like post-traumatic stress, just by being in there (typo 'training' -> 'draining'). All remaining planets are blasted wastelands & lifeless slag, or perhaps the largest remaining chunks of planets are just bits a couple thousand km across. The writing is really inconsistent here.

Inhabitants: Armies of tieflings & assimar shooting at each other, dead people, larvae. The larvae feed on the dead people, and... don't breathe? Unknown. Also unknown is size, shape, and pretty much everything but that they exist.

Locations:

Port at the center: A massive spaceport at the center of the sphere where gravitational stuff is stable-ish. Owner-operator "Dandy Will" keeps it a neutral ground. Stays useful to both sides by providing medical services or tech or something, has 'no fighting' treaties with both sides. Decent Vectron following here & has become an unofficial pilgrimage spot billed as a sort of 'the only sane god' thing.

Death of innocence: A small 'town' on a 1km rock outside of the usual fighting areas, cobbled together from junk and emergency shelters. A haven for deserters and war criminals. Frankly it's probably only a 'haven' because they can't get out of the sphere on their own. There's much better places to hide, and places that wouldn't even care about your past.

Aeaea: The last remaining intact planetoid and more inconsistent writing, an old airless moonlet of one of the busted planets. As the largest remaining object in the system it's always being fought over. There are more orbital bombardment craters than asteroid strikes on it.

Adventures: There's a small group that shows up to the major battles and bets on them, if it isn't exciting enough the meddle to make it more exciting. larvae left alone long enough and with enough corpses to feed on may metamorphose into something strange, dangerous & pretty, partially composed of anger & wasted lives. There's a wasting sickness disease going around, maybe money for whoever can find a cure, maybe it's an out of control bio-weapon. New town/building called Corpus built out of corpses by a necromancer, the whole thing is made of animated corpses, maybe the necromancer has an artifact that allows them to do extra undead stuff.

Summary: Issue #1 according to the Abyss writeup the forces of chaos can't get out of the abyss in the great mucking numbers & fleets that they'd need for all this. Issue #2 it's an ongoing war zone that screws people over for just being there. Issue #3 If there a syrne portal relay here that's the focus of the fighting, if not then there's no reason to not just go on past to the opposing sphere unless the spheres are so far apart that you need the stop-over point and you might as well just pick a different sphere. Issue #4 For all the prose about how the place looks and how it's a constant war zone, there's really very little content or potential for content here.

[Telok]

Mechanus

Blurb: Dead worlds, ordered like clockwork, worlds are gears in a great machine, lifeless and in constant motion. All life is killed off by the modrons, horrible nearly mindless immortal things of living metal.

Physical conditions: Almost nobody ever returns from visiting Mechanus. Interior is like a great Dyson sphere built up against the crystal sphere walls. Gears the size of worlds, big pumping pistons, weird green light without any source. As the modrons aren't fully awake it's only as dangerous as being an ant crawling around inside a running engine. Vast clockwork, lifeless but moving, mostly made of necrodermis. Warp energy doesn't work in the sphere, spells fail, enchanted weapons are mundane, and magical protections don't. It's isn't a total ban but gets stronger the further in you go, at the edge of the sphere only the most powerful spells & enchantments fail, you have to go in a fair ways for everything to stop working. Deep in you get seas of oil, forests of pipes, and titanic arcs of green energy. Just being a living thing there might trigger defense systems to blast you. Moving gears & machines make just travel dangerous, nobody has been able to map any safe routes, small maneuverable ships can get pretty far in but almost none return.

Inhabitants: Modrons. If you find a lively one run away. They come back from being blasted almost instantly and more wake up & chase you the whole time you're fighting.

Locations:

Black oil sea: Several of them. The stuff moves like it's almost alive and sentient. Makes it's own currents & slithers around. Carries a flesh eating disease. Rumored that it can turn regular machines & metal into modrons & necrodermis.

Pylon forest: A perfectly regular "forest" of identical & bizarre machines. That's probably 'regular' in the 'orderly' sense and not the 'normal' sense. The pylons distort magic like lightning rods or funhouse mirrors. Nobody knows anything. The "branches" might go into higher dimensions or the warp and be part of the modrons non-magic teleport system. Of course nobody knows.

The afterlife: Quote the entirety of the entry: "It's where you end up if you spend too bloody long here."

Adventures: A scholar thinks modrons are waking up and needs data to support the theory, make the PCs got capture a live one for study. This... this is a quest from the Cocaine Wizards Guild. Which is actually a thing in my games. The black oil is a poison that can kill even exalts hard & fast, someone want some & pays the PCs to go get it. Send the PCs to destroy the Mechanus portal relay, it could be used as an invasion point but the modrons could use it to get out too, of course it's been running just fine on automatic for tens of thousands of years. Which of course brings up the issue of if the modrons could even use the warp to travel. They have some fancy teleport system and presumable don't get bored. Slogging it the long way across the astral sea at 90& of lightspeed would suit them just fine.

Summary: You're going to have to 1) Get the PCs to accept a quest to go there or drop them on it from a warp travel screw-up. 2) Stat up more modrons & maybe some WH40k necron stuff to fill out the encounter charts (I've done up to penta-drones and a monolith). 3) Figure out your 'less and less magic' system as they go deeper in. 4) Figure out how flying an explicitly hybrid magi-tech spelljammer works in there (probably special long endurance shuttles that are purely tech and no magic).

Look, the PCs won't ever go there on their own. Exponentially increasing numbers of modrons teleporting in as fights drag on are a big turn-off to players. And the modrons get smarter & tougher as their rank increases. I'm a programmer, I set them up as follows: (I compared the mono & duo stats to the old AD&D stats, then extended the patterns) Monos @ Int 1, 1 1/2action. Duos @ Int 2, 2 1/2 actions, and each has 1 general task capability & commands 8 monos. Tris @ Int 3, 3 1/2actions, double tasking capability, & commands 8 duos (64 mono). Quads @ Int 4, +1 actions & tasking, & commands 8 tris (64 duo, 512 mono). Etc., etc.

Mount Celestia

Blurb: A giant bigger-than-worlds mountain that rises from an ocean filling half the crystal sphere. Home turf of the blessed pantheon. Home of the assimar.

Physical conditions: Looks normal from a distance, a mountain rising out of the sea. The sea fills the lower half of the sphere and the mountain reaches to the top, which makes it about as tall above sea level as the diameter of a solar system. That also means that it should have an average 45 degree slope all over. Gravity runs on a sort of self perceived guild warp effect. Objects obey a normal 10m/s gravity field to the general 'down', people with lots of guilt are more strongly affected, people with significant magical resistance (aura probably) are less affected, being magic immune makes a person weightless. However nothing can fly upwards on the mountain and there's an altitude limit over the sea. Spelljammers can't get much higher than floating slightly above the sea. I presume that entry into the crystal sphere is either only possible in a narrow band around the equator/sea level or that any entry attempted by a ship simply appears at sea level on the inside.

Seven layers/transverses to the mountain, the next one up is always hazy and barely seen but shining brightly and you can't see upwards past that. Can't fly upwards. Blessed pantheon gods hang out at the top mostly, nobody who has gone that far up has ever come back. Center of the war effort against chaos. Justice and law enforced by assimar, servants of the pantheon, rule by divine will "and don't you forget it." Justice is fair but immediate, rarely death unless you refuse to pay the fine or go quietly to jail. So these guys actually pause for two seconds between saying "Surrender or die!" and shooting you, that's a nice break from most of the rest of the universe where the shooting usually starts right after the word 'surrender'. Quote: "Nice place, really,despite the assimar occasionally taking a bolter to someone's skull." Pleasant weather with occasional light & refreshing rain.

Inhabitants: Assimar, pilgrims, the-only-good-tiefling-is-a-dead-tiefling, tame animals although nothing larger or more dangerous than a sheep.

Locations:

Fortress of Sigmar; Continent sized palace, big gold throne at the center, run by the Custodes who are all fanatic loyal assimar chosen exalts over a thousand years old. Siggy has a large personal army that's usually out on a crusade somewhere. Everything in the realm is planned & has a purpose, everything. Heroes get directed where they need to go and can only get to Siggy if he wants them to. No info as to which layer it's on but I'd presume the first so that the army has an easier time of things.

Bahamut's palace: A glittering wonder built out of treasure, it moves around, mortals get to look but not approach. Smallest army but it's all dragons.

Soulforge: Moradin's, giant forge, anvil 40m high, river of pure divine energy, rumored to be where squat solus are made and assimar are remade from whatever they were before. Assimar have no memories of the process, which is probably good as its compared to hardening a sword. No idea where this place is either.

Unconqured sun: Pelor's palace at the tippy top of the mountain. As bright as the sun so wear your blindfold & SPF 5000 sunscreen. Guides & servants know the place perfectly & can walk it blind, everyone else tends to wander around & end up back outside. Shaped like a giant sphere of orilchmhmumm metal & glowing but not hot.

Halls of justice: Cuthbert's spot on the very first layer. Gigantic prison to reform people. Aura on the place that make it hard to resist following the guard's orders. Prisoners just mill about without orders. Peaceful & totally repressive. Nobody sees the boss, he just communicates through a few trusted underlings. Which of course means that he doesn't even really need to be there.

Adventures: Jailbreak & de-program someone from the prison because they know about treasure. The population of one of the layers has started worshipping the grey council neutral gods & is being hard purged, not the first time this has happened, also the PCs are there and should probably get out or stop it. On the first layer there's a new drug, someone used Moradin's pure divine energy as a component of it, PCs might try to find the alchemist making it for whatever fits their needs. Two groups of paladins are fighting over who gets to protect one of the thousands of minor shrines or holy sites on the mountain, you should try to involve the PCs somehow.

Summary: Honestly now, your PCs are going there to steal something, jailbreak someone, or beg a god for a favor. They are almost certainly not going there of their own accord. Also missing is information about transportation beyond 'no flying up'. You could be cosmopolitan and put trams & busses in.

Or you could be funny & make only small engines like jetpacks & scooters work. Jetpacks are good because you can jump down from heights, so all the assimar peace-forcers have them. But then they have to ride little putt-putt Hello Kitty scooters back up at 15kph and the thought of that just yanks their chains to no end. The peace-forcers are angry when the thought crime detectors go off and they have to go downslope.

[Telok]

Pandemonium

Blurb: It begins with "We don't go to Pandemonium anymore." and ends with "Don't go to Pandemonium." No info except vague mentions of madness, death, and tunnels.

Physical conditions: Pandemonium has noise like fire has heat. There's constant wind from hurricane strength to annoying constant moaning & flapping, everywhere. It must be part of the physics of the sphere that all gasses must be in constant large scale motion. It also carries a psychic effect that causes at least some level of insanity. There's no planets, the entire sphere is filled with rock right to the brim. At the edge there are some caverns big enough for spelljammers, as you deeper passages and caverns get narrower, smaller, and less frequent. There are no natural light sources and artificial light and what light you bring doesn't go as far, apparently rather than falling off at the inverse square it's closer to the inverse cube or something. Just assume that light goes less than half the usual distance if you don't like exponents/roots. Light is also a call out to the local murder-predators. Lots of water, most passages have anything from a stream to a river in them, it makes things slippery. Cold, generally staying just above the freezing point most of the time, meaning any dunking in the water is good for inflicting hypothermia. The Umbra here is bad, there is even more darkness and more murder-predators in there than in the rest of Pandemonium. Gravity is normal and down is towards the center of the sphere.

I had a good fight involving 'blind' critters that used natural active radar to do a hit & run pack hunt in a constant dust-storm. The first clue the PCs had was their radios getting massive interference and weird chirps & clicks. I ran them basically as cheetahs with armor piercing claw/bites using wolf pack tactics and the radar equivalent of bat sonar. Worked pretty well, especially when they were wounded and went quiet & readied actions to sort of leap attack at the PCs radio use. One tore up the party's van's paneling pretty well getting in to attack the driver.

Inhabitants: There are, despite all reason and logic, a couple cities of actual people. Well there were, one city got wiped out by an unknown something. So there's some murder-predators, some crazies, and whatever killed a city full of people/armed lunatics.

Locations:

The black flag: Pandemonium is a good place to hide. The Black Flag is a giant pirate base. Pirates, crooked merchants, built like an armored space station, insulated & designed to cut down on the wind. I ran it based on the pirate base in the Gap Cycle SF books by Stephen R. Donaldson, complete with it being run by 'the Bill'. I threw in a death-match area and a couple local liches too.

Ravenholm: Used to be the largest city, a base for mining camps, anyone welcome & all inquiries about a person's history were 'culturally inappropriate' (as in 'get you shot for asking and everyone approves of the shooting' inappropriate). A couple years ago everyone died. Just shredded chunks of bodies left. The entire city in an hour or two. Someone sent in a rescue team. They reported back for a bit and then (probably) suffered the same fate. Nobody else has bothered to try going there since then. Naturally the PCs will bee-line for it.

Phlem-thong: A pretty place. Colored stalactites and stalagmites formed by minerals in the dripping water. Also spirits of earth, air, cold, or something that occasionally disappear people.

Agathion: Closer to the core there are no passages, just isolated caverns like bubbles in the rock. There's still tornado level winds in the ones with cracks or breaches, the completely sealed ones have still air until you open them up, and only about half of these have air anyways. I guess that you're supposed to use some for of teleportation to get to them? Mining takes a good long time plus cave-ins and flooding.

Adventures: Some royal brat ran off to the Black Flag to be a pirate & the parents at home got assassinated, the PCs get a person-fetch quest with an assassin timer. The Ravenholm thing is spreading, hope it doesn't just a ship to another sphere. Rumors of a gigantic aboleth and mind flayer city.

Summary: Works OK, useable stuff here. Somewhat believable pirate bases are always nice. It has to be in a honking big cavern but it's point blank range for starship weapons and a defined approach vector, that makes it very defensible against navies mounting anything less than a massive and overwhelming assault without regard to casualties. Assume that it isn't aligned with any pirate faction and no single government gets too annoyed at it and things work out. Absolutely nothing about the aboleth being imprisoned here like the history overview said. I put D&D gibberlings, HPL flying polyps, a modron base, a couple mining camps (the free love tie-dye yeti mining commune got wiped out by the PCs leading a half million gibberlings that direction), and hidden shrines/laboratories/pirate loot caches. My aboleths and mind flayers have their own crystal spheres that they own/conquered/evolved in/whatever.

If you care there's a really dark picture in the Pandemonium section. Really really dark but with barely a hint of something in it. I pulled it out, put it in GIMP and did some image manipulations. It's a cave from the Elder Scrolls 4 game with a dead rat on the floor. That's it, dead rat in the darkness. About as scary as stepping on half a mouse (blame the cat) with your bare feet at night on the way to the bathroom in the dark.

That's all folks. That's your setting, warts, typos, inconsistencies and all.

Oh, wait. I forgot that book 1 has an index. I'll check...

Hey, "General Guidelines and Glossary", I'd forgotten about this bit.

Ok, black text n brown-grey background is annoying. Have fun, if it isn't broken don't fix it, if it is broken do something about it. In general round all fractions down, even the ones that are over half, unless something says otherwise. I'll go back over my vehicle changes to see what that does, otherwise there aren't many fractions unless you count dividing damage by resilience which is an explicit round down.

Characteristic changes, may often change things other than just rolls, like changing dexterity affects static defense and speed. Constitution and composure changes hit points and resolve. Oh, it's the explicit "lose HP when the stat goes down" thing. Yeah, I threw that away. HP & resolve go up when the stat goes up, but when it goes down it goes down as a cap rather than as additional damage.

Examples: Original -> 2x(Will 3 + Con 3) = 12 HP, a spell boosts CON to 5 -> 16 HP, take 15 wounds -> 1 HP, spell wears off & take another 4 wounds -> crit 3. Honestly I feel it's just a nuisance and the hit locations & different damage types make a merry mess of it. My way -> Same 12 HP, take 2 wounds -> 10 HP, something gives you -2 Con -> 2x(3+1)= max 8 HP -> HP reduced to the new maximum instead of taking 4 more untyped wounds to probably the body location.

Bonuses from different sources stack, bonuses for the same source don't. Unless there's something specific that says otherwise. Recasting the False Life spell over and over will not give you hundreds of temp HP, six necrometal armor pieces will not give people a -12k0 penalty to hit you.

Glossary:
* You are your own ally & may freely consider anyone an ally or enemy at will, whenever you want. You're allowed to swap someone ally/enemy as much as you want.
* Blinded: autofail sight perception & ballistics tests, -2k1 weaponry tests & most other vision using tests, grant combat advantage (+5 to attackers rolls to hit).
* Character == creature == character. There isn't a jankey 'parse the rules for advantage' thing going on here.
* Concealment increases static defense. Cover adds armor to what it covers.
* Crystal sphere: A barrier around a system. Looks like dull hazy glass from the outside, not transparent. Getting in is compared to sailing ships having to find a way through a reef. Not amazingly useful except for the visual description.
* Dead: Dead is dead. Corpses make fine doorstops.
* Free actions: Any number up to a reasonable amount that the DM says.
* Half action: Can't take the same one twice in a turn.
* Grappling: Reduces the actions that you can take. This may restrict or prevent spellcasting. I'll have to look into that.
* Incorporeal: Can only be hurt by artifacts & power field weapons, may pass through regular matter. I personally also let sealed & omnidirectional force fields hedge them out.
* Initiative: Rolled each round. I haven;t been doing that, it makes certain things a bit better. Will start. Also called out as 1d10 + Dexterity + Composure (as in 1d10+3+1, NOT 5d10). Need to compare with the combat sections, I think they said 1d10 + Composure.
* Natural weapon's use brawl and can't be broken or disarmed. Sort of an exception for when you tear off the arms with criticals, I'm pretty sure they can't use claws then.
* Opportunity attack: Called out as once per round. Pretty sure the combat section said once per turn.
* Perfect attack and perfect defense were apparently dropped as part of a revision at some point. They're in the glossary but there are no such abilities elsewhere.
* Restrained: Tied up. -1k0 to attack rolls, grant combat advantage, if it includes the legs you're also immobilized. Hrm. Probably might want a note about DM adjunction & partially vs. fully restrained limbs.
* Rogue trader: An insanely rich & powerful merchant. No referenced elsewhere in the book as I recall.
* Spelljammer = starship = spaceship = voidship = etc., etc.
* Stunned: Cannot take actions & grants combat advantage. Explicitly NOT helpless or unaware.
* Test, check, roll, etc.: Roll when determining failure (& margins of success) is important. Most daily tasks don't require rolls.
* Throne: Currency, not used in the rules.
* Unconsious: No actions & unaware. Still better than being dead though.

Cant: Sigil slag lifted from the Planescape stuff. You care or you don't. I generally don't unless there's a Sigil native that I'm RPing who would use it.

OK, finally. Done.

Now I just need quite time at home to review everything, put it in some sort of order, compare to the original text, put in 'this is where that change/fix goes', and then some editing passes. Maybe I'll see about inserting it as comments/ edits/ alternate pages into the PDF. There's also the ability to put Javascript into PDFs, I need to look into that. Then I could include the dice roller, statistical roller, and warp crap roller into the PDF as their own pages with buttons. I mean, I've been doing this on lunch breaks at work. Family is not conductive to quite time at home.

[lightningcat]

Gehenna

Blurb: The sphere's physics have made all the planetary bodies into 'geothermal furnaces' but there's no unexpected changes at the personal level. Um, "four main planets like twin volcanoes hundreds of thousands of kilometers tall and joined at the bases", I got nothing, can't visualize it. Uncounted mountain-sized flaming rocks orbit around everything. The closer to the main star the more active the geology gets.


I get the mental image of 4 planet sized d10s with volcanos at each end, and the rest of it looking like Mustafar from Revenge of the Sith. Surrounded by other giant dice, with volcanos at each sharp cornor as well.

[Telok]

Ah, each planet as "two volcanoes". That makes much more sense. I thought it still going on about all 4 at once.

Honestly I think more Io with rock instead of ice. And higher gravity since they're each one several Earth masses, I think.

[Lord Torath]

I think Io is volcanic. With rock and such. Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is the one spraying water and ice into the space around Saturn.

[Telok]

My memory has deceived me! I have mis-remembered among the 8 largest moons of Jupiter! Oh shame! Oh angst! How shall I ever live?

Ok, all better now.

In related news I picked up a pdf of Traveller spaceship mishaps that I'm translating into a DtD chart. Its intended to give a bit more variety and detail to the generic "trouble" results were you have to make everything up. Of course over the weekend I got maybe half way through in about 2 or 3 hours all while other people were napping. It may be next weekend before I can finish with it.

[Telok]

It's taken me quite some time (more than two weeks, possibly more than three) simply because I had to work on it at home. It's rather annoying how much more I can get done on a few lunch breaks with my phone then sitting at my actual computer. Ah, well, that's life.

Checking the glossary entries against the 'how to play' section:
* The combat section has initiative rolled only at the beginning of combat. The glossary says every round. Make it an optional rule? However it is 1d10 + Dexterity + Composure.
* Grappling shuts down spell casting. Grabbing the Blink spell isn't an auto-escape.
* Opportunity attacks are once per turn in the main text, not once per round as in the glossary.
* Restrained is unchanged, mentions the leg thing, and still no mention of possibly being unable to use an arm.

At some point I scored a PDF of spaceship malfunctions for some version of Traveller (I only do the original Traveller, with mods for modern gmips if I'm running it.). Let's mod that into DtD40k malfunctions and damage. Give a little more variety in space mishaps that the DM doesn't have to make up out of whole cloth.

Let's see there's references to task checks, easy-routine-difficult-formidable, recalling that Traveller is a 2d6+skill system. Call those, hmm, 10-15-20-25 mostly matches the descriptions. 6k3 does 51% at 25, 82% at 20, and doesn't usually worry about 15s. 4k2 does like 26% for a 20. Yeah, OK, that'll match up decently.

1d10 -> 1: hull, 2: electronics, 3: environment, 4: crew, 5: computer, 6: power, 7: drives, 8: weapons and shields, 9: shuttles & fighters, 10: re-roll or use a normal ship critical hit.
You could be instructed to roll for another mishap or malfunction. Such rolls could use 1d5, 1d10, or 1d5+number.
For rolls of 1dX-number (1d5-4, 1d10-8, etc.) that end up as less than zero treat the result as zero or 'nothing new happens'.

* Hull. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: atmosphere loss, 3: landing/docking gear, 4: airlock, 5: fire.
* Electronics. 1d5 -> 1-3: sensors, 4 & 5: communications
* Environment. 1d5 -> 1: life support, 2: gravity control, 3: inertial compensation, 4: plumbing, 5 galley
* Crew. 1d5 -> 1-3: illness, 4 & 5: injury
* Computer. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: software, 3: storage, 4 & 5: hardware
* Power. 1d5 -> 1-4: problem, 5: emergency
* Drives. 1d5 -> 1: Geller field, 2: hull cooling, 3: main thrusters, 4: directional thrusters, 5: gyroscope
* Weapons & shields. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: control, 3 weapon, 4 & 5 shields
* Shuttles & Fighters. 1d5 -> 1: bay doors, 2: fuel depot, 3: loose craft, 4 & 5: shuttle malfunction

Extended repairs and shipyard repairs: Any issues left unresolved (assuming they don't destroy the ship or kill all the crew) are completely fixed during an extended repair or shipyard repair. Unless, of course, they say they can't be fixed that way.

All caps: Statements in all caps refer to ship stats or other mishap results. Ship stats indicate crew damage, hull damage, sensor roll modifications, etc. The phrase CREW QUALITY in reference to a roll means that you should roll (2x crew quality)k(crew quality) if a generic crew member needs to make a roll. [Crew quality 1 = 2k1, quality 2 = 4k2, quality 3 = 6k3, quality 4 = 8k4, quality 5 = 10k5]

EVA & hazardous EVA: Someone has to go outside the hull to fix things. If this is done in a hazardous environment (space, toxic atmosphere, high gravity, combat, etc.) failing the check by 10 results in a CREW casualty for regular EVA. For a hazardous EVA failing check by 5 results in a CREW casualty and failing by 15 inflicts another mishap on the ship.

Time references: Some things may happen during space combat and some of them may happen outside of space combat. In space combat use the 'rounds' reference and make engineering action, arcana action, etc., rolls. Out of combat use the 'minutes/hours' reference and the individual characters leading the repair, rescue, or other fix attempts make the skill+attribute rolls as usual. Some things only really matter out of combat, at least after the initial rolls are resolved, and thus their repairs do not mention a time in rounds. You can still assign crew to fix them in combat if you wish.

No skill or attribute mentioned: These rolls are generally reserved for things that require a significant number of the crew to resolve, but that they'll resolve in the normal course of their duties. In ship combat make a free (no CREW allocation required) CREW QUALITY check. You may also allocate crew to the action as normal during the combat round. Out of combat it takes the listed amount of time for each check to happen, just in case time matters.

No crew action mentioned: If an entry has a skill + attribute roll but no crew action (engineering, arcana, tactical, command, etc.) then it's a one person job. If a random crew member is attempting it they normally roll as per a CREW QUALITY roll.


** Hull **
Atmosphere loss. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: minor, interior repairs required, DC 15 engineering/tech, each [rounds/30 min] take a 1d5-4 CREW casualty. 3 & 4: major, evacuates the section, hazardous EVA, DC 15 engineering/tech, each [round/10 min] take a 1d10-6 CREW casualty. 5: catastrophic, explosive decompression of the section, unsuited personnel are killed (1d5 CREW casualties) unless void-suits are available and they make a DC 20 [Tech-Use + Dexterity or CREW QUALITY] check, hazardous EVA, repairs take DC 20 & 2 hours.

Landing/docking. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: jams closed, attempts to land/dock inflict 1d5 HULL DAMAGE, DC 20 & 1 hour to fix. 3 & 4: jams open, entering/leaving or high speed flying around in the atmosphere inflicts 2k1 HULL DAMAGE, DC 20 & 1 hour to fix, 50% chance it also requires EVA. 5: collapses on the next use, as JAMS CLOSED but requires a DC 20 Arcana check or manual inspection to notice before a landing/docking attempt is made, on an landing/docking attempted it destroys the landing/docking gear which requires an extended repair or shipyard replacement.

Airlock. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: won't open, DC 15 & 30 minutes. 3: outer door jams open, EVA, DC 20 & 1 hour. 4: inner door jams open, DC 20 & 1 hour. 5: catastrophic, explosive decompression of the section, unsuited personnel are killed (1d5 CREW casualties) unless void-suits are available and they make a DC 20 [Tech-Use + Dexterity or CREW QUALITY] check, hazardous EVA, repairs take DC 20 & 2 hours.

Fire. Decompression of the affected section automatically puts out the fire. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: minor, non-critical area of the ship, DC 15 every [round/20 minutes], each failure causes another malfunction rolled on 1d5. 3 & 4: major, several sections are affected, DC 20 every [round/10 minutes], each failure causes another malfunction rolled on 1d10. 5: critical, a very important section of the ship has a major fire, DC 25 every 10 minutes, each failure causes another malfunction rolled on 1d5+5.

** Electronics **
Sensors. 1d5 -> 1: shorted out, DC (1d5 x 5) engineering/tech, each [round/hour] until its fixed apply a -50 modifier to any sensor rolls. 2: damaged sensor disk, EVA, DC 15 engineering/tech, each [round/hour] until its fixed apply a -50 modifier to any sensor rolls. 3: stuck on, the sensors are continually active until something gets cleared out or unjammed, no form of stealth is possible while this persists, DC 15 arcana & 30 min. 4 & 5: garbage in & out, the next attempt to use active sensors returns gibberish, DC 20 arcana & [1 round/10 min] to re-set something.

Communications 1d5 -> 1: the in-ship intercoms and broadcasts are down, DC 15 engineering/tech & 2 hours, until they are fixed your command actions will not affect your crew. 2-4: external communications are cut off, DC 20 arcana & 30 min, 50% chance it requires EVA. 5: stuck on, DC 15 perception/CREW QUALITY each [round/20 min] to notice that the 'broadcast' light is still on, DC 15 arcana/engineering/tech & 10 min, if it's left on in combat your enemies get +5 on rolls for their reactions to you and on rolls to shoot or ram you.

** Environment **
Life support. 1d5 -> 1: lights out, DC 15 engineering/tech, 10 min, -1k0 all crew checks until fixed. 2: water recycling, no effect for about 2 days, DC 15 engineering/tech, 30 min. 3: air pressure goes off, still within liveable ranges, DC 20 engineering/tech, 30 minutes. 4: temperature controls freeze in the 'cold' position, in about 3 hours it will drop below freezing, three hours after than people may start dying, DC 20 engineering/tech, 2 hours. 5: air purifiers are fouled, air will become un-breathable in MAX CREW hours, DC 20 engineering/tech, 2 hours.

Gravity control. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: slightly annoying fluctuations, DC 15 engineering/arcana/tech, 10 minutes. 3: annoying fluctuations, DC 20 engineering/arcana/tech, 1 hour. 4: no gravity, DC 15 acrobatics + dexterity or CREW QUALITY and DC 25 engineering/arcana/tech, 2 hours, until fixed -1k0 all crew actions unless the dexterity/CREW QUALITY save is made first. 5: gravity increases 1d5 x10 m/s, people with lower strength than the gravity are immobilized, if the gravity is 5g or more everyone is gains a level of fatigue each [round/30 minutes], if the gravity is 6g or more people start dying in 6-constitution hours, DC 15 strength + athletics or CREW QUALITY and DC 25 engineering/tech/arcana & 2 hours, alternately -> DC 15 strength + athletics or CREW QUALITY and DC 20 tech-use to turn off the gravity (then you fix it with the DC 25 check later).

Inertial compensation. The compensators are what keep people from smashing into walls when the ship makes a sudden turn. Any time the ship makes a turn, evasive manoeuvrers, or adjust speed action roll athletics + dexterity, acrobatics + strength, or CREW QUALITY against DC 20 and take 1d5 [wounds/CREW casualties] on a failure. Repairs are DC (1d5 x5)+5 using engineering/arcana/tech.

Plumbing. 1d5 -> All the toilets overflow, people are unhappy. DC 15, 30 minutes.

Galley. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: busted equipment, food cannot be properly prepared & may have to be eaten raw, DC 10 tech-use & 1 hour. 3: mild contamination, see MILD ILLNESS under the crew mishaps, DC 10 & 1 hour or replacement food stores. 4: serious contamination, see SERIOUS ILLNESS under the crew mishaps, DC 20 & 1 hour or replacement food stores. 5: slagged equipment, as BUSTED EQUIPMENT but DC 25 tech-use & 1d10 hours if sufficient replacement parts are available, if it has to stay broken make a DC 15 check every few meals to see if the cooks produce a MILD ILLNESS result.

** Crew **
Illness. 1d5 -> SERIOUS and MORTAL illnesses can by "contained" by complete isolation of the infected. Treat this as rolling zero on the medic checks but the illness cannot continue through the rest of the crew. 1 & 2: mild illness, 1d10 of the CREW are unavailable for extended non-combat actions for 2d10 days, DC 10 medic makes it go away after the first day. 3 & 4: dangerous illness, 2k1 of the CREW are unavailable for 3d10 days, DC 20 medic makes it go away after 1d5 days otherwise repeat this every 3d10 days, failing the medic check by 10 kills 1d5 CREW. 5: mortal illness, 4k1 of the CREW are stricken and unavailable for 4d10 days, a DC 25 medic makes it go away in 1d5+5 days otherwise repeat this every 2d10 days, failing the medic check by 10 kills 2k1 CREW.

Injury. 1d5 -> 1-3: an incident has injured one CREW, they are unavailable for regular duty but are otherwise still alive and kicking, DC 15 medic and one [round/hour] will restore them, they will recover on their own in 2k2 days. 4: serious injuries are inflicted on one CREW, they are hospitalized and unavailable until they heal, DC 20 medic and 1 day will allow then to resume their duties in 2k1 days, failing the check by 10 or more kills them. 5: something blew up and inflicted mortal injuries, one CREW is knocked out and they will die unless a DC 25 medic check is made in the next [round/hour], recovery takes 1d5+1 weeks.

** Computer **
Software. 1d5 -> 1: program fault, bonuses or abilities for the spaceship from consoles that are or include computers are no longer available until a DC 15 engineering/tech use check is made. 2: ship system failure, roll 1d10 and 1d5 again on the mishap table to see what ship function goes offline, it can be restarted with a DC 25 engineering/tech check in [1 round/5 minutes]. 3: data wipe, all stored data is lost, offline backups or repurchasing the data is required, all navigation checks are at -10, a tech-use/luck(arcana officer level) check against DC 25 indicates that someone made an offline backup (if that wasn't already stated by the players), restoring and verifying everything takes 1d5 hours. 4: fire control programs crash, restart immediately as a DC 25 tech-use + intelligence check by the chief gunnery officer or treat this as a SHIP SYSTEM FAILURE. 5: security and anti-hijacking personnel files are lost, if the ship possesses murder-servitors treat this as an immediate 4k2 boarding attack and the console is considered damaged until the servitors can be repaired or replaced, otherwise treat this as a SHIP SYSTEM FAILURE that affects another system each round, DC 20 engineering/tech to turn off the security systems in [1 round/30 min] and DC 25 engineering/tech to restore them to working order in [1 round/2 hours], failing either check by 10 or more will activate any self-destruct consoles on the ship with a [1d5+1 round/5d10+10 min] count down.

Storage. 1d5 -> 1-4: partial memory fault, a portion of stored data is lost, treat this as a less severe and partial SOFTWARE:DATA WIPE event, DC 15 engineering/tech & 2 hours to recover data. 5: storage media failure, all stored data is lost, all navigation checks are at -10, offline backups or repurchasing the data is required and the media must be repaired or replaced, first a DC 15 engineering/tech taking [1 round/15 minutes] to restore the physical media, then a tech-use/luck(arcana officer level) check against DC 25 indicates that someone made an offline backup (if that wasn't already stated by the players), restoring and verifying everything takes 1d5 hours.

Hardware. 1d5 -> 1-4: partial computer hardware failure, treat this as a SOFTWARE:PROGRAM FAULT result. 5: system overload, all networked computers cease functioning, ship is paralysed except for things that can function purely by manual analogue controls, engineering/tech DC 25 and add the SOFTWARE:DATA WIPE event.

** Power **
Problem. 1d5 -> 1-3: safety overrides, the safeties keep tripping preventing all divert power and adjust speed attempts, DC 15 engineering/tech, [1 round/20 min]. 4 & 5: major problem, half power until fixed (1/2 speed, -10 sensors & acceleration & manoeuvrer, shields do not regenerate, 1/2 beam & cannon damage, no divert power actions are possible), DC 20 engineering [2 rounds/1 hour], if the check fails by 10 or more go to EMERGENCY:CATASTROPHIC.

Emergency. 1d5 -> 1-3 major problem, treat as PROBLEM:MAJOR PROBLEM. 4: emergency shut down, the safeties automatically take the power plant offline, to override the safeties and perform a temporary patch check DC 25 engineering/tech [1 round/10 minutes], then treat as an un-fixable PROBLEM:MAJOR PROBLEM until the next extended repair or starport repairs, to fix during an extended repair is DC 25 engineering, if either roll is failed by 10 or more go to CATASTROPHE. 5: catastrophe, the power plant goes critical, make a DC 25 engineering/tech roll in the next [round/5 minutes] to shut it down or it will explode, explosion causes all CREW in that section & working on the power plant to die - inflicts an additional & unrecoverable 1d10 CREW casualties - inflicts 2d10 HULL damage - and roll again on the mishap table at 1d5+5, one it is shut down it can be patched and restarted by treating it as an EMERGENCY SHUT DOWN event with the DCs increased to 30, failing the roll by 15 or more causes it to immediately explode.

** Drives **
Geller field. 1d5 -> 1-3: minor emitter fault, get one of the Geller field emitters out of storage and replace it, hazardous EVA engineering/tech DC 15 in 2 hours. 4: emitter array blowout, several Geller field emitters have exploded, get several of the Geller field emitters out of storage to replace them, hazardous EVA engineering/tech DC 20 in 6 hours. 5: Geller field collapse, the whole thing goes "Pfft!", repairs require a starport or extended repair session (engineering DC 25, failure by 10 causes it to appear to have worked normally but fail at the first unusual warp event).

Drive cooling. 1d5 -> 1-3: coolant loss, some of the drive coolant has vented into space and there isn't enough left to run the drives at full power, reduce speed by 1/2 and acceleration by -20, any attempt to change course or evade or divert power to engines or adjust speed works normally but each one has a cumulative 1/5 chance of causing an overheating coolant diversion event that cooks 1d2 CREW, repaired with EVA at DC 15 engineering in [2 rounds/2 hours] 4 & 5: total cooling system failure, if the drives are fired the waste heat will start cooking the ship, doing anything but drifting along will cause interior heating that cooks 1d5 crew, repairs are engineering DC 20 hazardous EVA over 4 hours.

Main thrusters. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: minor wiring fault, reduce speed by 1/2 and acceleration by -20, DC 15 engineering/tech, [1 round/30 min]. 3 & 4: major issue, reduce speed by 1/2 and acceleration by -20, engineering DC 20 & 4 hours. 5: serious thruster failure, the ship may not change course or velocity until DC 25 engineering/tech repairs are made after 6 hours, on a successful repair reduce speed by 1/2 and acceleration by -20, only a starport replacement can restore full function.

Directional thrusters. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: thrusters on one side fail, pilot rolls are at -2k1 and manoeuvrer is at -10, repaired on an EVA engineer/tech roll of DC 15 [1 round/1 hour]. 3 & 4: manoeuvring thrusters system failure, the ship cannot turn or evade, EVA engineer roll at DC 20 [2 rounds/2 hours]. 5: one side is stuck on, the ship cannot evade or go straight and must turn in the same direction every round (50%/50% left/right if you're using a 2d space map), hazardous EVA engineering at DC 20 [1 round/30 minutes].

Gyroscope. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: wobbly gyroscope, pilot rolls are at -1k0 until repairs are made, engineering/tech DC 15, [1 round/30 minutes]. 3 & 4: major problem, the fail-safes engage and spin the gyro down, all piloting rolls are at -3k2 until the fault is corrected and the gryo is spun back up, engineering/tech DC 15 [2 rounds/2 hours]. 5: the gyro breaks free and tears through the engine room, roll 1d5 on the DRIVES:MAIN THRUSTERS mishaps, internal explosions deal 1d10 HULL damage and 1d10 CREW casualties, all piloting rolls are at -3k2 until the gyroscope is replaced at a starport with major repair or ship construction facilities.

** Weapons & Shields **
Control. 1d5 -> 1-4: the controls for a single weapon stop working, the ship cannot use that weapon until repairs are made, DC 15 engineering / tech / gunnery / arcana in [1 round/10 min]. 5: array controls disabled, beams cannot be organized into arrays until the controls are fixed or re routed, DC 20 engineering/tech [1 round/10 min].

Weapons. 1d5 -> 1-3: a single weapon is damaged and will not fire, DC 20 engineering/tech/gunnery [1 round/10 min] to patch it until the end of the fight. 4: explosion in fire control, take 1 CREW casualty and all of the weapons in the forward or aft (50/50 chance) sections are disabled until fire control is rerouted to an auxiliary station, DC 15 engineering/computers/arcana [1 round/30 min]. 5: torpedo magazine explosion, if the ship has any torpedoes they explode dealing 1d10 HULL damage per remaining torpedo and 1d5 CREW damage, now there are no more torpedoes.

Shields. 1d5 -> 1-3: shield flickers, double the disruption of any weapon hits until the problem is fixed, DC 15 engineering/arcana [1 round/20 min]. 4: temporary power loss, the shields lose 1d10 points and will not regenerate next round. 5: shield generator failure, unless the chief engineering office can make as immediate tech-use+composure DC 25 roll the shields will fail at the end of [the next round/5 minutes], if the engineering officer is unavailable roll CREW QUALITY instead.

** Shuttles & Fighters **

Bay doors. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: won't open, DC 15 & 30 minutes, no launches or landings until it is fixed. 3 & 4: doors jam open, EVA, DC 20 & 1 hour. 5: catastrophic, explosive decompression of the section, unsuited personnel are killed (1d5 CREW casualties) unless void-suits are available and they make a DC 20 [Tech-Use + Dexterity or CREW QUALITY] check, hazardous EVA, repairs take DC 20 & 2 hours.

Fuel depot. 1d5 -> 1 & 3: fuel spill, no immediate effect, the crew will clean it up in [3 rounds/6 hours] unless another SHUTTLES & FIGHTERS mishap is rolled, then roll CREW QUALITY against DC 20, failure indicates an explosion that does 1k1 HULL damage plus 1d5 CREW casualties and destroys one of the ship's two shuttles (no more than 4 CREW can be used in any shuttle based boarding action until a new shuttle is acquired). 4: all fuel is lost, no more shuttles or fighters can by deployed or used until you find somewhere to get more high-energy fuel. 5: boom, an explosion that does 1k1 HULL damage plus 1d5 CREW casualties destroys one of the ship's two shuttles (no more than 4 CREW can be used in any shuttle based boarding action until a new shuttle is acquired).

Loose craft. 1d5 -> 1 & 2: docking clamp failure, there's a shuttle rolling round uncontrolled on the flight deck, no more shuttles or fighters can be launched or landed until it has been secured again, check CREW QUALITY against DC 15 each [round/30 min] until they get it under control. 3 & 4: back-flip, a shuttles has managed to flip over on it's back, no more shuttles or fighters can be landed or launched until its moved out of the way in [2 rounds/1 hour] and you're down a shuttle and no more than 4 CREW can be used in any shuttle based boarding actions until repairs are made at the next extended repair or starport (or you do something like steal a replacement of course). 5: roadkill, someone(s) got squished, take 1 CREW casualty.

Craft malfunction. General: If a shuttle is unavailable no more than 4 CREW can be used in any shuttle based boarding action until the damaged shuttle is fixed or a new shuttle is acquired. Ships normally have 2 shuttles.
1d5 -> 1 & 2: shuttle won't work, someone will have to make a Tech-use+Intelligence roll against DC (1d5)x5 and it takes 1d5 days to fix it any ways. 3: weapons fire, a shuttle or fighter misfires it's weapons inside the hanger, if you have assault shuttles but no fighters take 1 HULL damage and 1d5 CREW casualties, if you have fighters but no assault shuttles take 2k1 HULL damage and 1 CREW casualty, if you have both its a 50%/50% change which one happens, if you have neither then your peace-nik ways have saved you (this time). 4: indoor launch, one of your shuttle's engines lit off while the doors were closed and the craft was pointing the wrong way, 2d10 HULL damage and 1d5 CREW casualties, make a CREW QUALITY check or the Tactical Officer can roll Command+Composure against DC 25 to prevent the loss of both shuttles. 5: vehicle damage, with a small "Oops." one of your shuttles loses half of it's full hit points and suffers two vehicle critical damage rolls, it will need to be repaired before it can safely be used again.


Now to integrate that whole slew of things with the regular ship critical damage table. Ok how about "If the ship suffers a 1, 4, 8, or 10 result on the critical damage chart (two of those are ongoing damage and two are disabled consoles) the ship taking damage can choose to roll on the mishap charts. If people are tired of the spelljammer critical hit chart you can just straight up use the new chart or you can have it be a 1/10 chance per critical to jump to the new chart. In addition any roll of 11+ on the Warp Encounters Chart can use the DRIVES:GELLER FIELD sub-chart and the daemonic incursion event (9) or Plague of Madness (8) can use this chart to resolve precisely what sort of mischief is happening."

[Telok]

Update: Working on a semi polished book 1 errata/notes/options.

Have figured out how to put javascript programming into a pdf. I can put the dice stats, roller, and expanded warp crap rollers into the pdfs. Need to see if there are 3rd party or freeware (prefer *nix versions) capable of doing so or if I'll have to fool with AdobePro & see f I can get that free/cheap. May also need to fire up my Winpoo partition on the home comp if no linux versions of stuff available.

[Telok]

Still chugging away. Almost done with the text of the book 1 errata/update/whatever.

Need to snag a free PDF reader for linux that will do the javascript in PDFs so I can test a couple things for having added a calculator to a PDF page.

As a bonus today though:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y4yNxz7SIiel7mQy_Bd1ZWWulc-Ipje5/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfE2VxOW9t6Qz4PWABXQ2Cyvgl2VvLQs/view?usp=sharing

Those are html files. Web pages. One is the dice percentages calculator, the other is the die roller. They are both now free of needing to use bootstrap or jquery. That means they ought to work anywhere on pretty much any browser, even offline.

Save them anywhere, open them with a browser (it'll probably be the automatic choice any ways), skip adding up dice. The roller does the total and tells you how many 10+s you rolled, then it does a hit location, then it does the total with as few 10s as possible (for the casters out there who don't know how to fetter) and tells you if you had to keep any 10s any ways, then it calculates the half values for your parry & dodge attempts.

If any of these web services that claim to fully convert html to pdf are actually telling the truth then I could maybe avoid having to pay for a adobe acrobat pro license just to make two freaking pages at the end of a free pdf. Or maybe I'll just shrink the font down and stick the straight html code in a box and tell people to learn how to copy and paste.

[Telok]

Been thinking about the jam rates for guns.

Default is a jam if you roll more 1s than your level on attack. Took a hour to brute force a basic table on 10 million tries per dice per level... half a billion sets of rolled dice? Something like.

Default hits 5% rate at L1 at 4 dice, L2 at 9 dice, L3 maxxes at 1.28%, sort of punishing more skill, aims, and full auto.

Ok. Default penalizes skill and proficency over level. Change to more 1s than skill penalizes proficient level over skill. Hm, more 1s than higher of proficient level OR skill? Then it stops mattering at skill or level 3. Maybe jam on more 1s than 10s and if porficient then also more 1s than level? Cuts the jam rate by a bit more than half if prof (10s & 1s equally likely). Unsure.

Default tableish
L1: dice, %
2,1
3,2.79
4,5.24
5,8.16
6,11.43
7,14.96
8,18.7
9,22.49
10,26.37

L2
3,0.1
5,0.86
6,1.58
8,3.81
9,5.28
10,7.02

L3
4,0.01
8,0.5
9,0.83
10,1.28

L4
6,0.01
10,0.16

L5
9&10, 0.01 (rounding)

[Cluedrew]

I just caught up after getting busy and loosing track of the thread for a while. Once again, so many crazy-fun bits.

Wow things are messy in the setting.

I really like the damage for the ships. Especially since if I go back to homebrewing I think I will be working on a system where a spaceship gets damaged a lot. And now I am tempted to make those tables WAY more complicated.

[Telok]

Embrace technology, automate large tables.

The ability to put lightweight programming in pdfs and distribute web pages as stand alone files is something the industry should embrace. The industry leaders are all still in the "print books -> pay to advertise -> got users -> monetize users through paywall" mentality. Pazio might be getting the hint as the aonsrd.com site actually helps drive Starfinder play and purchases but they still haven't figured out what the web games did, that some free stuff gets you users and acts as advertising.

Well, I ought to code up the warp crap charts I made into a similar web page. Four charts of 20 to 50 items each with some "roll twice on the previous chart" and "roll on the next chart". Not something you'd want to do by hand a lot. But better than the charts in the book if you roll warp crap more than 10 times. The engine itself is trivial: it reads the lines into an array and chooses one at random, then checks the chosen line for XdY, XkY, and other special text, does any rolls or extra rolls or kicks over to another chart as indicated.

As a bonus once you've automated a table it's trivial (assuming it's done right) to add more options (and sometimes more features) later.

[Telok]

Book 2 text update (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SojmMrIOVsKkPfHUwiwM5DA34-Rana1r/view?usp=sharing)

Book 1 text update (https://drive.google.com/file/d/11y6UzujaEM_MfACa4v8E6HFoOl07wQt1/view?usp=sharing)

Whoo. My personal errata for the game. Now, more choices.

Family means that I can't usually work on my actual home computer. I can however, and it makes no sense to me, work on an obsolete "Eee Pc" pocketbook computer that I got surplus and free off an IT uncle ten plus years ago. The poor thing has a 32 bit processor for Crom's sake. Editing PDFs on this little thing is likely to be torture. But I can build web pages with a bare bones text editor. So I'll probably work on putting out automated random tables. I suppose I could eventually compile the different generators into a single fancy pants page.

I still don't have a freeware editor that can do fully functional forms and javascript in PDFs. I have two that I need to try but, again, using the actual computer sends people into fits for some reason. Still, making the web pages translates the mechanics of the tables into javascript, which will make the process much faster once I can get these people to go to bed and leave me to my typing.

Now, I know I want to do the notes and short discussion/optional rules as annotations or pop-up notes in the PDFs. It'll take going in and fooling with the PDF to see which tables will fit, but I can always add additional and expanded tables as appendices with a hyperlink in the PDF to go back and forth (on page XX link to page YY where the optional expanded table is, on YY link back to XX because that's where the original table was). I guess I'll just have to see how the rest of the stuff fits as I go along.

Oh, yeah. Any feedback on the werewolf changes, new spells, or completely reworked gun katas?

[lightningcat]

Book 2
Spells look good.
Tin Star (p90), it should read "You can use trick shots with pistols." Not "You can use trick shot pistols."
Drivetrain notes (p96) I feel like there should be a note for trains and other such vehicles not needing to buy maneuverability, but not sure.
Everything else looks good.

Book 1
Spirit Sight (p81) I personally, would reverse the sentence placement of the last two sentences. So it would be "You gain the feat Speak Language (Spirits) which effectively bypasses any need to share a language with a spirit, ghost, or elemental. When you are shifted into Wolf Form you can communicate with other canid animals."
The difference is minor, but it keeps people from thinking they only have spirit speach in wolf form.
Vengeful (p145) I would add "Werewolves who fail this roll treat it as losing Resolve for the purposes of Temper, Temper." Making it a better two-edged sword for them.
Untouchables (p148) I would make it "a sphere with a diameter in meters equal to 5 times the number of times the asset has been taken after the first." This keeps the first level from having an AoE benefit, which fits the WH40k blanks idea fairly well.
Call Item (p158) perhaps allow Conjuration Level items prepared.
Polymorph (p173) this needs a different name. Wolf Shape? Polymorph implies multiple options, which is another way to go, but more complicated.

[Telok]

Thanks lightningcat. I'll get to those "soonish".

For the rest of all,
Happy holidays, it's the expanded warp crap roller in html webpage form. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mPMbMaLEjNuroTFmPYYG8xmgrn5Rb8ea/view?usp=sharing

The guarantees are 1) It's easy to edit entries in any text editor if you feel the need, and 2) IE is crap that I only support at work because I'm paid to*.


* Translation: If it doesn't work on IE you should join the 21st century and use a real browser that implements standards instead of screwing the users.

[Telok]

Oopsie. I found an error in the warp roller.

Fixed version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PTyTljJLjTfIwGQMwFsMp127UcZNTTPQ/view?usp=sharing

I incorporated your suggestions lightningcat, mostly.

I left Call Item as a single item but cut the TN for the free action call down to 10 + 5x size of the item. It's now also 'an item that you can easily hold in your hands' which opens up more possibilities (beyond the already ever popular Bag of Holding). I think that one item is OK, the first level spells aren't world shaking. The sword schools and gun kata you have to buy a rank in the school and then pay for a trick, with the magic schools you just get known spells. I'm sort of trying to keep in mind that lots of people won't play long term campaigns like my groups try to do. Actually, except for Paranoia one-shots, I don't think I've run a game that wasn't a 10 to 14 months of (almost every) weekly sessions. Which, I think seems to be a bit of an outlier?

The Vengeful hindrance I added the ability to lose a Resolve point to not be vengeful. That will interact nicely with werewolves while still being an optional trigger under the player's control. Plus it makes goading someone in social combat an interesting proposition if they have the trait.

I renamed Polymorph into Transformation. I think the extra forms thing is handled by the note to be included. Plus you can use it offensively now. That does remind me though, I need to include something about which spells can or should be allowed to be cast in melee without opportunity attacks. By default it's none of them. I may have addressed that by including a 'before then end of your next turn' in some of them, I don't recall offhand.

I don't think anything needs to be done for the manoeuvrability of vehicles on rails. You can always make it free by taking the -10 option and it could still come up in trying to stunt your subway car into jumping onto another track.

[anthon]

i cant wait to share this madness with an associate who's been busy ranting 40k memes and werewolf at me while i rant back in grognard. He's now trying to hard code a MUSH with Chronicles of Darkness rules.

[Telok]

i cant wait to share this madness with an associate who's been busy ranting 40k memes and werewolf at me while i rant back in grognard. He's now trying to hard code a MUSH with Chronicles of Darkness rules.

Tell ya what, I'm pretty fuzzy on a way to integrate the CoD umbra into the 40k/Spelljammer/etc. mashup of a setting. Ask him what/how he'd do that.

Untill I find a better pdf editor (current gets memory hogging as edits pile up) I'll probably whack out a few more webpage versions of table rollers.

[Cluedrew]

* Translation: If it doesn't work on IE you should join the 21st century and use a real browser that implements standards instead of screwing the users.So Firefox. Chrome actually doesn't support video communication properly, but people work around it.

I'm probably never going to go over the rules (I have no interest in playing this game right now, just marvelling at its insanity) but I may go over the dice roller.

[Telok]

Happy new year, I guess.

Link to a html page version of the spaceship mishap roller: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OP1ZuwtlLMZT9syqHbadtY7ppGl8qJU9/view?usp=sharing

If you open it in a text editor there are some notes on how to modify stuff if you desire to do so and don't know any programming.

Thought for the day: 340k is 1/1000th of 340 million. Pick up three d10s, pick a number, think about it.

[Telok]

The long slog begins.

I managed to get the text files into order for the work and figured out the programs I'm using. Began direct text editing where they fit. Will then have to export some (many) pages for formatting & text. Then replace them in the big pdf. Then add all the notes. All while doing a bit of coding in adobe pro during lunch to get the rollers into pdf pages

A large part of the slog-ness will be how often the rest of the family all naps during weekends.

UPDATE

So turning the rollers into pdfs was much easier than I thought. The conversion to web page format with javascript was where the work was. I now have 4 pdfs that will do rolks, calcs, warp effects, and spelljammer mishaps as long as you have a viewer that can do pdf forms. The official free adobe pdf viewer obviously worked in testing. They all have reset buttons so it's ok if you accidentally save them.

Will post them "soon".

[Telok]

As promised, four rollers in one pdf.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10L1g0n352DJjHq8m2If7tbDt-JVkXaPY/view?usp=drivesdk

Works with adobe reader, should work with most any reader that does forms I think.

Edit: Minor update. The pdfs are split into individual pages now. The fonts were extracted and installed (there's one that libredraw insists is in outline when it's really just bold, eh whatever). I'm doing the direct text changes, so far through page 80. Don't get to work on it often.

Scraped the "official" DtD forums and picked up about 15 or so things to errata/note across both books. Not much.

However... I can work on lighter stuff on lunch break. So... There's going to be a web page version of a vehicle builder using my changes. Some day, probably after everything else, I'll append that to the mobile app. It probably will not go into the pdfs, too many long tables and controls. Plus for some insane reason the javascript editing windows in adobe pro don't have find/replace, don't even have a find function at all. Utterly cannot find a way to do the javascript & form tools outside adobe pro.

[Telok]

More update: Vehicle builder going well, weapon add template is functioning and does multiple plus micronizing and macronizing. Most base stats in, calculations working. Direct text editing is proceeding, up to about p140 now.

Now, there are some blank spots in the book. I'm happy to add more pictures, though trying to keep with the overall art themes of the book is difficult using free images. If you blokes want to I'll take suggestions for the following spots

exalts
p57 atlantean
p61 chosen
p68 paragon
p73 promethian
p77 vampire

assets
p138 daemonhost (or more sins instead of a picture)
p141 vampire (or more assets)

guns
p206 - p209

melee
p213 & p214

cyber p221

Free use creative commons or public domain images.

Update: up to p.165

[Telok]

Up into the equipment section of book 1. Fixed a few typos I've run across too.

I worked out alternate costs & bits for the custom weapon charts in book 2. Existing weapons can be replicated or approximated with the new costs.

Worked out a 'balanced' set of vehicle melee weapons and got the lascannon from book 1 in as a vehicle weapon. It's size 4 so if you want to have a one-peice mp las cannon t's about the size of an average human.

My additions to the armors are going to involve a fair bit of squeezing. Some weapon pics in the equipment section may have to go. That's ok since most of those are pretty lousy images anyways.

Still taking suggestions for pics for blank spots and replacement weapon images.

Should have done properly object oriented code for the vehicle builder. But I wasn't sure about some of the middle bits when I started. If this were paid/job I'd give it a proper refactoring. Since it's hobby I'll luve with imperfect cut & paste.

Realized that since I have all the rollers and the vehicle builder in html I could slap around a simple website to hold everything in a single place. Anyone want to recommend a particularly good free hosting service?

[Telok]

Vehicle builder web page done. This version at least.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11uu9xYP6cVE80GAiFohxYPW58S_J-kT3/view?usp=drivesdk

Edit-Found errors, new version soon.

Edit-Fixed errors, same link, still html page.

[Telok]

Done with straight text alterations through the equipment section.

Added my batch of armors, fixed some spelling errors, added a pic at the end of the cyber stuff. Left the trashy weapon images in, nobody said anything and I'm not spending that much of my limited time on finding new ones. That said, I can move stuff around on the pages and combine the trash pics into a single space for larger images if anyone has some.

I have some notes on tasks, TNs/DCs. Need to type those up for either PDF notes or an appendix of DMing advice.

How good?
TN 5 @ 50% for even 1k1
TN 10 @ 50% with 7k1 (2k2 does 50% at about TN 11.5)
TN 15 @ 50% with 10k1 and 3k2.
TN 20 @ 50% with 7k2 and 4k3.
TN 25 @ 50% with 6k3 and 5k4.
TN 30 @ 50% with 9k3, 6k4, and 5k5.
TN 35 @ 50% with 8k4, 7k5, 6k6.
To figure what the chance of rolling with a raise add 5 to your TN and look at those dice. So TN 20 has a 50% chance at success with a raise at 6k3 or 5k4. For figuring checks go the other way, TN 20 has a 50% chance of failure with two checks at 7k1.

Straight roll vs. TN = target shooting.
Straight roll vs. raises over TN = jumping distance.
Straight opposed rolls = spell saves, grapple, dodge, parry.

Number of successes: This is a time measure roll. How long it takes to complete some task. Can be simplified to a slightly higher TN, one roll, and shift the time based on checks/raises.
Number of successes before number of failures: This is a time check with a chance of failure in the middle. If you want to use this learn from the D&D 4e mistake -> more rolls = more average results, less rolls = more random. If the people are rolling at better than 50% for each roll then more rolls = more chance of success and is thus 'easier' to succeed than fewer rolls. Again, you can just +10 the TN and declare that failure by three checks or something.

Total amount: Add up the rolls to a gigantic TN. This is another "how long" check.
Total amount over a TN: A slower "how long" that can gate out characters with fewer dice. I like using this for opening really big stuck doors. Strength+Size TN 20 to total 50. Or you can say 10 raises over TN 20. Mind, 8k4 has a 10% chance to throw a 50+ result.
Total amount with reducers: This is a form of extended opposed rolls. Even if it's a constant -10 on the total that's like being opposed by a 7k1 or 2k2. Again, this is a time check with a chance of failure. Barring the dice god's curse it's "do you have more dice than the reducer?".

Break it down: 1) Straight success/failure, 2) how well you rolled, 3) how long it took, 4) how long with the possibility of failure. That's it, those are what you're really rolling for.

[Telok]

Update: got into playing the game section last weekend, will make more progress this weekend. Found another problem with vehicle builder web page, fixed but not uploaded. Started writing up text for appendices on breaks.

Who wants a randon daemon generator? The defaults are a bit naff, even my "just add daemonhost qualities & a magic school" make them just OK. Building it as above plus adding two random skills, a npc trait or mutation(weapon limb or stat rearrange) or warp power(simply a few of the warp crap roll results as usable abilities), and a feat package or "daemon of foo" ability(modified forms of the chosen exalt assets).

[Telok]

Status update:

Straight text editing done. Going back through and cleaning up some formatting since I found a better way to do it half way through. Then I need to build my appendices, although I could also rebuild the main book and start adding the notes/annotations then attach the appendices at the end. The dice rollers and such are going at the very end and then you do bookmarks last.

The daemon improvement randomizer is going well. Since its two buttons and a text box it will be included as one of the forms pages. Since its properly object oriented I may be up adding lich / vamp / young dragon / etc., to it. I think I'll end up translating it to java, moving the lists to text files, and adding it as another page of the andriod app.

I rewrote a couple magic items, but if you want to rewrite a couple of the magic bead ones I'll willing to replace a couple of the lamer ones with whatever you come up with. Just keep it around the same word count / length.

Also still willing to replace pics in the equipment chapters with whatever you want. Same thing, try for the same-ish size, but I can move text around decently so you could combine a couple size worth of pics for replacement.

[Telok]

25 pages left to format and the straight text changes are done. Then I work on the appendices.

Daemon & hero randomizer are done. Will upload and link hrml & pdf versions "soon". Will build them into andriod app "someday", probably after book 2 editing completes.

Last call (probably) if you want replacement pics / artifacts included.

[Telok]

I blame you guys. It's been too quiet.

minion rules page pdf (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AOMgtlWGB8RvuK1R0VLDXL5Hjxt26_Xz/view?usp=sharing)

So the straight text edits are done in book 1. I'm on to compiling the appendices and putting them into PDFs, then I'll stitch everything back into one big PDF and begin the final run of inserting notes and bookmarks.

I made a spaceship builder html page and bit to automate space ship shield hits and regeneration. Then I tested it by comparing the shields. Well, the spaceship shields are another thing to balance now. The high end multiphasic shields turned out just too good in testing, they have effectively increasing regeneration and resistance to disruption as they go down. I fooled with other way to run them, since the book is vague on how to do that, and anything but each layer being it's own separate shield but not going out until all shields have gone out was just trash. So... Gotta fool with that a bit.

[lightningcat]

I love how the Fluffy Bunnies are straight up more dangerous than the kobolds.

[Telok]

I love how the Fluffy Bunnies are straight up more dangerous than the kobolds.

That's original to the book. I'm blaming you lot for my picture choices. You dang near ened up with some almost nsfw motivators from the old thread we killed rpg.net with ("got better").

The appendices are going faster. I'm replacing the "example of play" section with them. It was kind of "bleah" that's just getting replaced by optional rules and charts.

Did figure out a better balance of shields. I threw a 33 dmg 3 dis hit on 1/round and 2/round. Same with a 28 dmg 8 dis hit. Then x2 and x4 17 dmg 0 dis, and the same as 13 dmg 5 dis. Then 1/round and 2/round mini torps and monopole torps. Ended with 1/round rift torps. Kept track of how many rounds & fractions it took to knock out the shields. Balance is that each shield was best against some and worst against some, except standard that wasn't best anywhere but was only worst against multiple torpedo hits each round. Values mostly went up to increase the difference between shields to the point theres a noticable difference. Amount/regen of mk1 to mk4 follows. Standard: 80/15 to 150/20. Cov: 100/5 to 200/10. Regen: 60/25 to 100/40. Resil: 80/7 to 170/13. Multi all still 20/10 but now x3 to x6.

[Quertus]

Still on p.2, but was asked to post comments I made elsewhere… here (I hope).

So, I've only gotten to actually *play* a very little dtd40k7e - mostly I've been planning and world-building and making NPCs. But the *negative* side of my impressions so far: "Cons: character creation feels too complex for the benefits. Class system offers too little crossover potential. Feels too much like "one trick pony" is the optimal play. Needs better (more extensive) tables. Limited potential for growth. Perhaps most of all, "raises" system feels horrifically underutilized."

My biases: my group likes Daemonhosts, and Wealth.

[lightningcat]

You have done more with the system than I have then. I have only gotten characters made.
The downsides to life I suppose.

But all I can say is read fast, Telok is almost done with his Revised edition. Which I am not saying "I told you so" about.

[Telok]

The heck I'm almost done. I need to do the last bit of the magic appendix (pushing animate dead), then the chase rules (built like the book 2 vehicle chases), then the npcs-minions-fight-estimation, then the bit about the setting (how availability of astropaths & navigators affects things). Then recompile from loose page back into one pdf.

That'll be the draft. If I'm really lucky I might get that done this weekend. I'll post it for comments. Thing is, the text edits are only about... 3/5 of it all? I'm going to go through and put in notes and page links. The notes are where all the optional rules and useful advice will be.

If you want to suggest rejiggering class feats for more crossing go ahead. I made fairly few changes to them. I'll try to dig up and post the exact changes I've made so far.

Um, tables. Insanity and shock got reworked tables, plus I tried to de-uberstat willpower a bit. Appendices have big lists of derangements and phobias. A d200 mutation list, for funsies. Doubled the size of the armor table. Personal fav add is Plastic Man armor, cheap trash but also managed to make it a callback to Rifts, Starwars, and Paranoia. Also threw in a powered exoskeleton so you can do the Aliens polwer loader fight scene and have cheaper but lousy open-face power armor. Fixed the grand daiklaive, added a compound bow, tweaked grenades. Added a listing of... either conditions or situations. To the combat chapter. I think. Late night fixing coffee machines and family computers. May check lat$+?:

[Quertus]

So, to explain my issue with the classes… as the man said, everything should be as simple as it can be (and no simpler).

All the classes have prerequisites. That would be fine, but… for the most part, the only way to enter "foo 3" is through "foo 2". The class system has all the disadvantages of 3e D&D, with none of the advantages of its "Legos" nature.

What it *does* give is the rare Easter egg when one actually *can* enter foo 2 from bar 1.

How would I fix it? Well, that's a tough one.

My first though would be to make another 20 or so class progressions (so, 100 extra classes), with an eye towards overlapping abilities. Maybe a D&D based class, like wildshape Ranger, who could transition to and from Druid as well as one or more ranged or melee classes. Maybe a Psion and Psychic Warrior class progression, which… heck, who knows what they might be similar to in this system, but they've definitely got cross-class school access.

Or maybe class tracks based on other systems, like Warhammer fantasy "Winds" Mage, who gets access to exactly 1 school of magic, and… whatever else that system gives them. Or a "cultist of Tzeentch" class track, that gives odd magic (make the target vomit? Really, Tzeentch?) and social skills.

My second thought was to parallel prestige classes. Much like the "command crew" classes, they would be 1-2 levels long. Unlike those classes, they would explicitly be built a) to allow entry from many classes; b) to allow exit into many classes; c) to carry a cost.

So, for example, a very *specific* class, like bar-bear-ian, who can rage, and change into a bear. Suppose it's a level 2 class. Then it would be designed to enter from Barbarian 1 or Druid 1, and able to exit into Barbarian 2 or Druid 2… *or* enter from Barbarian 2 or Druid 2, and able to exit into Barbarian 3 or Druid 3. So it slows down your progression, while giving you level-appropriate abilities, and definite exit options.

Or, for a more general example, a very generic Mystic Theurge. It would be a generic caster class, able to be entered from any caster class, granting all schools of magic, and exits to any caster class. Maybe it slows you down even more, enterable by any level 3 caster, and exiting to any level 3 caster.

Note that, in order to guarantee exit to a class, you have to grant at least the skills that that class requires.

Which… is another concept that my group is struggling with.

At character creation, you can start with up to 3 dots in any skill. Now, the system lets you fiddle around with how you assigned your skills, which is great.

But suppose that your character, for character reasons, didn't take a skill, like Stealth or Ranged or Forbidden Lore or Drive. If your character takes interest in this skill… they cannot advance it unless their class offers it. Which means that, to get the skill, they have to take a class from a different track… if they can even qualify for one that gives that skill, without actually *having* the skill.

So, the two issues with skills (which are more "feel" than "fact") are "you need the skill to get the skill", and "you *could* learn it when 'classless', but not now that you've chosen a class".

A third way I might try to make the class system complexity match what it offers is to give classes explicit career exits (like Warhammer fantasy does). So maybe "Ranger 3" exits to "Ranger 4", "Druid 2", "Arcane Archer 1", and "Pokemon trainer 1". And some classes are still "basic" classes, that you can enter from anywhere.

The downside is, if you make a new class in a new book, it has to edit all the previous classes that should allow entry into it. So a new book with "Faustian lyrist" has to say, "add this class to the 'Bard 3' career exit table". Which isn't as clean as the other 2 solutions, IMO.

[Telok]

SQUEE!

The first draft! (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_mF6sycLArHFPlRBCkBPJcyI8zCAixen/view?usp=sharing)

The file size is 85 megs because I haven't done any optimization on it yet. No bookmarks, no links, no notes in it. I also can't tell if all the forms are working as I'm running Adobe Reader through the WINE program because apparently Adobe doesn't compile stuff for non-Windows systems. At least one did work, I don't know about the others because I haven't done extensive testing and I can't tell if it's the PDF compiler I'm using, the Adobe Reader having an error, or there's a bug in the scripts on the forms.

Quertus: I went though and looked at the classes again, then did a spreadsheet with lines all over it. I tweaked some of the requirements and offered feats. Other than the barbarian track there ought to be two off-track entries into the 2nd and 3rd level classes, and at least one off-track entry into each 4th level class. I'm OK with the 5th level classes being locked to the 4th level class from their own track. Originally (and I didn't change it) anyone can buy up any skill, it's just 2x the XP cost if it wasn't in any of you class skill lists.

Remember, any adding of pages means that I'd have to go through and manually re-number every single page after that. So any proposed changes to the class setup should fit within the current page count.

Edit: found logic errors crossing rogue & assassin levels. Issue on p.81 werewolf feral heart power table - background lightening from the original table dosen't match. Pic background for p.123 isn't transparent. Capitalization & clarity in text p.129. Text spacing p.133. Words p.157 WoF: "think fog" - thick & contingency "pointing tp" - at. Mind net p.160 "include" add "s". Command p.162 cross check against magic appendix for subversion resource. General magic check spells to find missed saving throw keywords. DesigTarg p.163 clarify who saves (target). EGrasp keyword line extra \r. EBits p.165 roll - focus power test. Image p.168 add subtle. PI p.169 untill caster wants animation to stop. Transform p.173 proficient & add "with". Sword schools, check backgrounds on diff monitors at diff settings. Insanity p.270 change some willpower check(s) to composure. Non cobatant def to 14, p.337. Add paragrapg title after example or move example down p.372.

Edit: found issue with forms, was same name fields, have new compiled rollers with fixed names, will replace on next draft. Initial optimize test reduced to 26mb, still 2x original but much better than 85.

[Telok]

Disappointed in you guys. I'm still finding and correcting lots of little issues as well as reworking some stuff.

As a time filler have a pdf, not only of the compiled assorted rollers, but with the vehicle and spelljammer builder html files attached to it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16piikJualD1xrHpufpS8ulVInsdgjHoz/view?usp=drivesdk

I rewrote the class pages, they now note which classes they exit to. Tweaked a few bits on the artifacts, after I noticed that I would never consider some of them even if they fit a character. Amusingly artifact 1 can get you artifact Plastic Man armor. Artifact 4 can get you artifact Plastic Man armor, artifact autopistol, artifact ammo for said pistol. Added a few more appendix bits, stuff on dice rolling, hacking, chases, etc. Need to rewrite the index pages now. Decided to make them a 2 column format and start with an index of tables that, in the end, will be hyperlinked to each table so you can just hit the index page to hop to any table in the book.

[Lord Raziere]

Well the problem is I looked it over and saw little different from the usual thing aside from your additional stuff which I didn't have much of an opinion on. so its like, I'm not sure what I should be saying?

[Telok]

Well the problem is I looked it over and saw little different from the usual thing aside from your additional stuff which I didn't have much of an opinion on. so its like, I'm not sure what I should be saying?

Well for starters when I'm opening a pdf page in LibreDraw it renders bold MPalatin font as bold outline MPalatin font and drops the MagicMedieval font for it's default setting font. I found at least one place where I'd missed a word (melee weapon table). I'm throwing in things that I notice or think of as I go along. Most are pretty minor, but I tweaked the grenade costs and added the compound bow that way. In this next draft I'll have touched all the artifacts, mostly minor changes but a couple new items I just though up.

The graphics on a few of the backgrounds of the tables has been pretty bad in a couple places that I've noticed. I'm checking the visuals on my two home screens with slightly different settings and on a phone and a tablet. But I can't always easily tell if something looks off and there's no way for me to go through every page four times, mostly because of time constraints. I get to do most of my work after the rest of the house has gone to bed.

The appendices are all written in my own tone. While I try to be clear and concise I know that I don't always succeed and that I can't tell when that is. So if there's anything in those that's incoherent I'd love it if somebody piped up about it.

Last, I really am taking suggestions. There are a few remaining spots for pictures and I'm not exactly emotionally attached to a lot of the pics in the books. I think there's a bit of a heavy WH40K graphical influence that I'd like a little lighter. But finding images that are reasonably possible to use takes a fair bit of time. The images in the equipment section, I'd love to replace on pages 209, 210, 212, and 213. Since moving text around on a page is easy I can combine or split space for bigger or smaller images. The artifact hearthstone Windstone is pretty lousy (seriously, parrying bullets is what stunts are for I seriously don't want that sort of air-breathing mermaid issue here) but I don't know what to replace it with or how to change it. The essence union dart is probably pretty weak too. Gemstone of Immortality, exalts are already canonically immortal plus RPG character life expectancy make it pretty pointless as an artifact for the PCs and I can't really see NPCs going for it too much as I'm sure other methods to gain immortality exist (level 1 vampires are tough but not invincible so it's perfectly possible to go for a turn & kill setup or just buying your way in, promethians are made, and there's always the Deadpool method of trying to become a daemonhost or werewolf).

[Telok]

Oops.

During lunch I stuck a random generator on the spelljammer builder html page...

I now have a 16000 line text file of assorted spelljammers. Some of them involve bad decisions. A few are quite good. I only looked at the first 80 or so.

I may never need to build another jammer again...

Crud. I need a random name generator linked in. And a rule to reject a few bad decisions.

Edit: right filtering out the worst decisions (like holdings 5 ships with quality 1 crew and shields) was trivial. Next, names.

[Telok]

New draft up. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XThKdXUEDhUja5_JZZ4glzXRAMdhCl8c/view?usp=sharing

Over 80 pages edited from the last one. All classes and almost all spell list pages got touched.

Naturally I've already found 9 pages that need little fixes.

Edit: Boo-Ya! Boo-Ya! Little edits & fixes done. Will do an optimized pdf with working form pages (two broke up there) today. After that I'm doing the hyperlinks and option/comment stamping. Last call for picture recommendations replacements, or other requests.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay I can tell you one flaw I have with your pdfs over the original: the original has various bookmarks for ease of jumping to one section or another

Whoa whoa whoa, what are the "exits" on the classes? why are those there? do they limit what I can exit into, because I don't like that, and wouldn't play this version.

[Cluedrew]

I don't think they limit what you can exit to, rather they not which classes this class will allow you to qualify for on there own. Unfortunately its hard to prove a negative so I can't say that it is always true but that is what it suggests to me.

[Telok]

No, the exits aren't limits. They're just the easiest next step.

Bookmarks. So, um, many posts ago I spoke about the actual process that this was going to take. Step 1 was extracting the (apparently custom/unusual) fonts and getting them into my editors. Step 2 was splitting then entire ~380 page document into ~380 one page documents so I could edit them without paying a year+ subscription to Adobe. And it actually turned out that Adobe Pro would have been terrible for editing large amounts of text anyways. Then of course all the pages had to be reassembled (the program for that is what's breaking the dice roller forms at the end, have to use pro on lunch break to remove & re-add). That ended up with a 89 meg document, too big. Optimization takes it down to 29 megs or a little less.

Yeah, bookmarks and hyperlinks go in last because there's something like 3 or 4 steps that would break them.

Edit: also all the classes got evened out, no more creative cross classing to get to 5th level under 20 feats (get evocation through daemonhost/atlantean and have meteor storm when other characters are just about to/unlocking 4th level with no magics/swords). The best I can do is get a very specific gnome cleric build that ends at 3250xp & 5 healing or abjuration when the other classes end out at 3200xp but no swords/magics.

But keep up the checks. The exits confusion is the sort of thing I need to know about before I finish off a section.

Edit edit: ok, figured can put "how to read a class" on p.88 or p.89 and will add explanatory annotations in the intro classes. Don't really want to kill the pic on p.89 but may need room. Opinions? Suggestions for a different pic half as wide?

[Telok]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18eSUZiI6pOakbsfN0CExZg-3c1LZ_d_c/view?usp=drivesdk

New version. 30mb, has working rollers and attached vehicle/spelljammer builders.

You know, turns out it helps if you remember to turn on the image compression stuff when exporting pages to pdf format. One page went from 8mb to under 200kb.

Updated vampire undead resilience. See, originally it barely did anything, except it referenced the Undead trait in the npc section. That originally just removed I think eating, breathing, and sleeping. Which meant you could technically kill zombies & skeletons with bleeding or knock them out with fatigue.

One thing I'm doing is building characters, intentionally building ones I wouldn't play or usually build. For just this reason, to find these things.

[Cluedrew]

OK I haven't really had time to go into any depth, I tried just skimming it but there is so much going on I couldn't really pick anything out. But there is something I noticed while searching for "exits" for the last post. And that is maybe instead of marking starting/level 1 classes just put the level number there. It feels like knowing being able to pick out level 2, 3, 4 and 5 classes would be helpful.

Also now I forget, and it just occurred to me so I'm going to skip checking, do you have page references on the class list? That might be useful too.

[Telok]

OK I haven't really had time to go into any depth, I tried just skimming it but there is so much going on I couldn't really pick anything out. But there is something I noticed while searching for "exits" for the last post. And that is maybe instead of marking starting/level 1 classes just put the level number there. It feels like knowing being able to pick out level 2, 3, 4 and 5 classes would be helpful.

Also now I forget, and it just occurred to me so I'm going to skip checking, do you have page references on the class list? That might be useful too.

Planning on hyperlinking the crud out of the index and classes and feats. Putting some in the "how to play section too". That sound good?

Edit: also spells, sword schools, and the appendices are the big change areas. Looking for outliers in spells, stuff to absolutely always take or never take. Checking that you'd want to take acsword school to 5 dots (get effectively 50xp per dot to spend on a move when buying a dot of a school). Want the extra stuff to make sense and be readable.

Have started editing pages from book 2 until probably the weekend. Then will start in on annotate and marking book 1.

More edit: improved random spelljammer generator, added bookmarks & set page numbering to match, fix 2 typo.

Next step should be annotating & commentary. Annoying - adobe will do custom mark icons but won't copy/paste, okular will copy/paste but not correctly do custom icons. Searching reveals both issues going back several years.

[Telok]

Book 1 done
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GfOajpqML5MatgceQza402posKSEzDBa/view?usp=drivesdk

[Telok]

Work proceeds on book 2. Page edits through illusion magic completed.

Working on book 2 appendix materials.
Sample : magic stuff & daemonic possession appendixes current subject matter
APPENDIX A -- Magic -- grab enchantment and illusion page from other pdf as page 2 of this

The reason behind rewriting the spells in this revised version is simple, some of them were complete trash and others were hard to figure out. Our methodology for rewriting spells is fairly simple, to make choosing one spell over another into a difficult decision and to better describe the spell's mechanical effects. For example, we took the 5th level Evocation spell Meteor Storm (Book 1, p.??) and the 5th level Healing spell Resurrection (Book 1, p??) as a baselines for 5th level spells and all other 5th level spells were compared to them. We asked would we consider taking the other spell over Meteor Storm or Resurrection? This also gave us a non-spell metric to compare 5th level spell effects to; burning a Hero Point (Book 1, p.??). To survive Meteor Storm (averages about 25 to 30 wounds), or simply not be permanently dead, many characters would have to burn a Hero Point. So a 5th level spell should let us either survive a Meteor Storm, make someone spend more than one Hero Point, burn a Hero Point, or allow someone to not need to a Hero Point. Naturally, some effects don't lend themselves well to that sort of comparison, most illusions and divinations being a good example, and we went with the question "if you had to choose one magic school based on these spells would you choose this school over those schools?" for those.

Our general magic guidelines are as follows:
Non-combat spells are incredibly dangerous to cast during combat.
-- Done by making you helpless until your next turn and having the casting action be at least a Full Action.
Enable different saving throws (seriously, Enchantment was _all_ Arcana+Willpower saves).
-- We added: int, dex, com, fel, wis, size, str.
Enable different attack rolls (using the optional rules presented in the notes).
-- Level+Attack skill, Dexterity+Attack skill, Arcana+Attack skill, Level+Dexterity, Arcana+Dexterity.
-- Choose one to use for everything, choose several and let the caster choose, or allow free choice among them all.
Reduce argument and frustration for SMs and players using illusions and mind control spells.
-- That's on the next page.
Attack touch spells last through the caster's next turn so they don't have to provoke and opportunity attack.
-- Several Evocation touch range attack spells had this issue.
Non-attack touch spells should provoke an opportunity attack when used offensively.
-- This is for the spells that can be 'buffs' but may also have negative consequences for the target if used correctly, like the Transformation spell (Book 1, p.??) which stops the target from casting most spells and using pretty much all weapons and armor.
Spells that don't work right when someone knows you cast a spell on them have to be subtle (a serious issue in some other games).
-- Consider the effect of Charm Person (Book 1, p.??) if a character had to stand up, wave their arms around, say "I-ay ast-cay arm-chay erson-pay!", and the target knew they rolled a Willpower saving throw against a mind affecting spell at that same moment. It doesn't matter if they'd fail the save, because they know you tried mind control magic on them and therefore you're a terrible person who should be shot and killed.
All spells are useful and choosing only one is difficult.
-- The original Permanent Image spell (Book 1, p.??) was the original Image spell (Book 1, p.??) but without the continuing concentration requirement.
The effects should be reasonably easy to use or rule on because of what they're supposed to do.
--

************************************************** *********
APPENDIX B -- relevant original text of spells tat were replaced or underwent significant changes **************************

Presented her in their original text are the are the spells that got whacked. This is for comparison and just in case you wanted to use any of them. Also noted is the reason for the change(s).

Abj: knock, mage armor, dispel, disjunction, wall of force *2* voidskil, endure
Conj: servant, call item, blink, gate *2* web, cloud, blade, incend
Div: augury, mind net *2* legend, forsee, hindsight
Ench: stun, whatever designated target replaced, geas *2* shock & awe, suggestion, demand, amnesia
Evo: MM, grasp, aura, wall *2* prismatic ray, lightning ring, maelstrom
Heal: cures, boon, rebuke, resurrection *2* heal, divine pow
Illus: programmed & permanent *2* script, deram, mislead, screen
Necro: speak dead, corrupt earth, consume soul *2* burning blood
Trans: enlarge, polymorph, dragon form *2* enlarge, stone tell, control weather, iron body

APPENDIX C -- daemonic possession ************************************************** ***********

What happens when someone gets possessed by a daemon? Well, it depends on the daemon. We'll be assuming that the possession attempt succeeds here.

If you're using the Daemons out of the book 1 antagonists chapter take your selected victim and;
1) Increase their strength, constitution, and willpower by 1 each if it's a lesser daemon, and by 2 each if it's a greater daemon. This can take stats to 6 or higher.
2) Add the traits Daemonic (+con to AP & HP), Darksight, and Resource.
3) Increase the victim's level by 1 to a maximum of whatever the possessing daemon's level is.
4) Increase their Resilience by 1 too. This is so you don't have to worry about if the level increase affected it, we'll just say it did.
5) Double check that you've recalculated the hit points, speed, and whatever else correctly.
6) If it's a greater daemon they also get the warp fire breath weapon.

If you're using our suggested daemon modifications or one of the randomly generated daemons take your victim and;
1) Increase their strength, constitution, and Resilience by 1. Level by +1 if it's less than the daemon's level.
2) Add the Darksight trait and make them a daemonhost exalt with a power stat equal to the daemon's level. This means a magic school, bonus armor, resource points, etc.
3) If the daemon has any feats, special powers, extra magic schools, gun katas, or sword schools you add those too.
4) Use the better of the daemon's skills or the victim's
5) Double check that you've recalculated the hit points, speed, and whatever else (don't worry about Resilience) correctly.
6) If it's a greater daemon they also get the warp fire breath weapon.

Here, let's take a generated lesser daemon and a regular soldier getting possessed.

Daemon:Str: 3, Dex: 3, Con: 3, Int: 2, Wis: 3, Will: 3, Cha: 5, Fel: 1, Cmp: 2, Static Defense: 20, Armor(all): 10, Resilience: 4, Hit Points: 9, Init+: 7, Ground speed: 6, Level: 2, Size: 4, Social Defense: 15, Resolve: 7, Resource Points: 12,
Dodge: 4K3. Weaponry/Parry: 4K2. Sense: 4K3. Stealth: 3K3. Arcana/Detect: 4K2. * Bite/Claws, 5K3, 5K2 R, p0, Tearing. * When down enemy in melee make another attack to adjacent enemy, +1 wound when doing crit dmg, if All Out Attack wounds repeat attack once, test Con vs 10+5/round to resist stuns. Recovers RP equal to wounds from biting and by 3K3 vs 10+2/spent as a free action (fail gains 1 RP and 1 E dmg body wound). May spend 1 Resource to add +2 magic school ranks for the current spell cast. * Fearless(Angry)[immune + 3K3 vs 15 to not fight]. * Illusion at 4k2 (int), Spells: Disguise: TN 10, Self Noncombat Sustain(reaction) S: full sensory disguise, Scrutiny v casting result to detect. Invisibility: TN 15, Self Full Act Subtle, as Stealth roll, pops on offense or 2 minutes. * Arcana:2, 4K2. Perception:1, 4K3. Acrobatics:1, 4K3. Ballistics:2, 4K2. Brawling:3, 5K3. Larceny:2, 5K3. Weaponry:2, 4K2. Inorganic: Immune to breathing, vacuum, mind affecting, bleeding, toxins. Takes half E type damage. Extra Feats: Cleave, Iron Jaw, Devastating Critical, Furious Assault Daemonic: Extra HP and armor. Sees through all darkness. Fear Caster: Fear(1) to31meters, TN 10+5/rank.

Well, let's only take what we need. (we cheat and npc daemon hosts get their damage reduction as bonus AP for simplicity)
darksight, daemonhost power level 2, con+2 bonus ap not vs magic/silver, resource points will+cha+4, When down enemy in melee make another attack to adjacent enemy, +1 wound when doing crit dmg, if All Out Attack wounds repeat attack once, test Con vs 10+5/round to resist stuns. Recovers resource points by 3K3 vs 10+2/spent as a free action (fail gains 1 RP and 1 E dmg body wound). May spend 1 Resource to add +2 magic school ranks for the current spell cast. * Fearless(Angry)[immune + 3K3 vs 15 to not fight]. * Illusion at 4k2 (int), Spells: Disguise: TN 10, Self Noncombat Sustain(reaction) S: full sensory disguise, Scrutiny v casting result to detect. Invisibility: TN 15, Self Full Act Subtle, as Stealth roll, pops on offense or 2 minutes. * Arcana:2, Perception:1, Acrobatics:1, Ballistics:2, Brawling:3, Larceny:2, Weaponry:2

And now the soldier.
Stats phy=3, else=2, Acrobatics 1, Perception 1, Common Lore 1, Intimidate 2, Scrutiny 1, Weaponry 2, Ballistics 2.
Speed 6, Size/Resilience 4 / 4, Static Defense 17, HP 7, Feats Weapon Proficiency (Ordinary, Parrying, Las). Sound Constitution x 2, Jaded, Armor Proficiency (light, medium), Armor Flak Vest, Gauntlets,(5 AP; Arms, Body)Helmet (4 AP; Head), Attacks Knife (4k2 R; Pen 0), Lasgun (60m; S/3; 3k2 E; Pen 0; Clip 60; Reload Full), Gear Uniform, Flak Armor, Lasgun, 2 Energy Packs, Micro-bead, Torch, Level 2

Combine for:
Str4 dex3 con4 else=2, level 2, resource points 8 [2k2 vs 10+2/spent as a free action (fail gains 1 RP and 1 E dmg body wound)]
Acrobatics 1 4k3, Perception 1 3k2, Common Lore 1 3k2, Intimidate 2 4k2, Scrutiny 1 3k2, Weaponry 2 4k2, Ballistics 2 4k2, Brawling 3 5k3, Larceny 2 4k2,
Speed 7, Size/Resilience 4 / 5, Static Defense 17, HP 8, AP flak 5(arms/body) 4(head) + daemon +6(all) not v magic/silver
When down enemy in melee make another attack to adjacent enemy, +1 wound when doing crit dmg, if All Out Attack wounds repeat attack once, test Con[4k4] vs 10+5/round to resist stuns, Fearless(Angry)[immune + 3K3 vs 15 to not fight]
SEE IN DARK. May spend 1 Resource to add +2 magic school ranks for the current spell cast.
Illusion at 4k2 (int), Spells: Disguise: TN 10, Self Noncombat Sustain(reaction) S: full sensory disguise, Scrutiny v casting result to detect. Invisibility: TN 15, Self Full Act Subtle, as Stealth roll, pops on offense or 2 minutes.
Knife [4k2](5k2 R; Pen 0), Lasgun [4k2](60m; S/3; 3k2 E; Pen 0; Clip 60; Reload Full), unarmed [5k3](4k1 I pen0 +fatigue), Gear Uniform, Flak Armor, Lasgun, 2 Energy Packs, Micro-bead, Torch.

Heh, he's going to be a problem for someone isn't he? He got a little stronger, rather tougher, has more attack options, and can case Disguise & Invisibility.

What if we go with the regular by-the-book lesser daemon?
Stats str4 dex3 con4 will3 else=2, level 2, resource 8, SEE IN DARK
Acrobatics 1 4k3, Perception 1 3k2, Common Lore 1 3k2, Intimidate 2 4k2, Scrutiny 1 3k2, Weaponry 2 4k2, Ballistics 2 4k2.
Speed 7, Size/Resilience 4 / 5, Static Defense 17, HP 13, AP 4(all)+flak(5 body/arms)(4 head)
Feats Weapon Proficiency (Ordinary, Parrying, Las). Sound Constitution x 2, Jaded, Armor Proficiency (light, medium), Armor Flak Vest, Gauntlets,(5 AP; Arms, Body)Helmet (4 AP; Head), Attacks Knife [4k2](5k2 R; Pen 0), Lasgun [4k2](60m; S/3; 3k2 E; Pen 0; Clip 60; Reload Full), Gear Uniform, Flak Armor, Lasgun, 2 Energy Packs, Micro-bead, Torch

Well... He has more HP and AP than before, almost double. He goes from taking 32 damage (ap 5) before starting to fold to 70 damage (ap 9) before getting into crit 2 territory. Of course the random generation daemon went to 45 damage (ap 11) and got magic plus more & better attack choices.


Edit: continuing progress. Spells & gun kata edited. Working on vehicle rule pages now. Found minor error/omission in good & best quality armor text. Not replacing the page because it would break many many links, so will live with font inconsistencies and a note blaming proof readers.

May end up adding pages in this or the spelljamming section, requiring re-numbering all pages after that. Would add pages in pairs to maintain "book look".

Will note: basically every suggestion anyone put in this thread ended up in the revision.

Zero-g personal combat appendixAPPENDIX F -- ZERO-G COMBAT ************************************************** *********
DM Note, Fighting in zero-G: It may happen at some point that your players get into a fight where gravity (natural or artificial) is not present. We present these optional rules for movement and fighting in zero-G combat.

This section depends a lot on the concept of being braced. That means that you're somehow secured on or against something stable. It can be holding onto a strut with one hand, being tied to (immobile) heavy equipment, hooked around a pipe, glued to a wall, or clipped to a tie-down point. One very popular choice is heavy magnetic boots on (most) spaceship hulls. Basically life is just easier if you aren't flailing around without anything to grab hold of and steady yourself on.

We introduce here a new condition: Out of Control (or "All Spinny" if you like that instead). When you're Out of Control you get half your normal rolled dice to do anything. You can stop being Out of Control if you can grab onto something and brace yourself. Generally you can test any of Athletics, Acrobatics, Brawling, Tech-Use (if you have an appropriate device), Weaponry (for whips), Ballistics (lassoes, fire extinguishers, and grappling hooks), Piloting (jet-packs, and fire extinguishers again), or just about anything you can justify. The base TN is 15 and you get a free raise if you're using something designed for this purpose. That includes grabbing onto crash webbing, those convenient 'don't fall into space' safety lines NASA uses, and the ever popular magnetic space-boots.

Ranges of thrown and muscle powered projectiles (a kind SM may include crossbows of various sorts) are tripled, other weapon ranges are unaffected as their accuracy/range interaction is not primarily dependent on acceleration due to gravity.

Your effective strength is halved for melee strikes unless you're braced against something. Damage inflicted by and during grappling is unaffected, as are parrying weapons (using short stabbing motions) and weapons with the Power Field effect.

The short version of the rest of this: If you aren't braced take cumulative -1k0s until you stop to brace or steady yourself. Getting around is usually TN 15, and stopping is TN 10. If you're hit by an explosion test against the damage or get knocked off and go out of control.

Melee attacks take a cumulative -1k0 penalty per attack unless you're braced somehow. This carries over from turn to turn as long as you're making continual attacks. If you take the multi-attack action three times in a row using Swift Attack each time your first attack one the first round is at -1k0 and your last attack on the third round will be a -6k0. Projectile weapon attacks take the same penalty for the number of shots that they've previously fired. Using Double Tap for three rounds your first shot is at no penalty, but the last shot is at -5k0. Using automatic weapons without bracing loses the normal +2k1 bonus and applies a penalty equal to half the RoF being used. An long burst from an autogun will get you a -5k0 penalty, doing it again the next round ups then penalty to -10k0 as you spin around in space scattering bullets everywhere. This is when the Grim Servant 'O Death hinderance comes into play. Taking a half action to brace yourself against a solid object or something negates and resets the penalties to zero.

If you can't fly then you're getting around by climbing (Book 1, p.XXX, but you can't fall and get a free raise to everything), jumping (Book 1, same page, but you travel 10x the 'distance' each round in a straight line and get a free raise), or using some means of artificial propulsion. That's usually a jet-pack (Piloting) or shooting a projectile gun in the opposite direction (Ballistics). Directed energy weapons, needlers, and rocket launchers are just about useless for propulsion. Flamers are actually easier to use as a means of travel since they give a lower but steadier thrust than the explosive jolts of projectiles. Changing direction is often accomplished using Dexterity, perhaps aided by Acrobatics, with a normal TN of 15 modified by how fast you're going and how precisely you need to aim your trajectory. Trying to come to a near stop is just TN 10. Of course you can always grab onto something, brace yourself, and then jump off in the desired direction too.

Being caught in the blast of an explosion tends to throw people around. If you're braced you can test Athletics+Strength against the damage roll to stay put. That's assuming that you're the one holding on. If it's a piece of equipment doing the holding you just have to hope it doesn't get too damaged. If you aren't braced then you test Acrobatics+Dexterity against the rolled damage to prevent going Out of Control and you're still getting pushed away from the blast. Treat anything that would knock you prone or fling you around in the same manner as an explosion.

In the course of your game there may come a time when some critter or creature should be naturally adept at zero gravity stuff. Like space kaiju take no form of penalties in ship-to-kaiju combat sort of things. Great. Either they can fly or they have some way to brace themselves (suckers, natural glue, anything your diseased little brain can think of). If they have to roll they automatically get two free raises (or knock 10 of the TN, same thing). There's also immaterial and/or phasing stuff like ghosts. Those annoying buggers just don't bother to roll, they just go.

[Telok]

More appendices
Character op, not fully settled on the number or type of example characters yet
Character optimization is considered a dirty word in some places. This is because it allows some characters to be better at stuff than other characters. Now, normally this isn't an issue. We don't care on combat the barbarian is awesome, the assassin is a glass cannon, and the cleric is just sort of tagging along and helping out. That's because we assume that the assassin is better at stealthy stuff than the other two, the cleric is good at knowing stuff and casting spells where the others can't, and that all of this is relevant in a game. Where the dislike for 'char op' comes from is when a game is only about combat or the cleric manages to be better at combat than the barbarian, better at stealthy stuff than the assassin, and is still the only person who knows stuff and casts spells. Of course that may not be due to any sort of character building, it could be inherent in the game.

In DUNGEONS THE DRAGONING we've tried to just make everyone awesome so we don't need to care about fiddly pop weenie "balance" or anything. Some effort has gone into trying to make every exalt pretty good in their own way (that's why werewolves got a re-write, they had issues). We've fiddled with the classes a little to make your choice of class track matter a little less. You're still going to want to stick to the fighty type classes for fighting and the magical classes for spell casting, but there's been an attempt to make them all a bit more even and get them all to have more than just 'fight' and 'cast spell' as options. We'll explore some of the extremes in our sample characters.

Note & Assumptions: With the rewrite you can take up to four hinderances, upping starting character XP to 1000. We're assuming that the player gets to apply that XP in any order and that everything taken applies before they spend the next chunk of XP. We'll do everything by the character creation steps - 1) stats, 2) skills, 3) species, 4) exaltation, 5) class, 6) backgrounds, 7) alignment, 8) XP, 9 equipment package (actually we'll ignore this one most of the time). We also have a very strong tendency to take the Veteran O' the Wheel asset. It costs 100 XP and a semi-hinderance, but if it cranks an attribute up to 5 that's 400 XP you aren't paying later. Add getting a skill up to 5 and that's another 200 XP of value. All the class tracks require two skills at 5 to get into the 5th level, so if you're playing the long game it's completely worth it. If you're playing a short game you should consider it anyways since the three combat skills use the skill level as kept dice, and kept dice are a good thing.

A: 6 Weaponry Skill. This is how to start with a 6 in a skill, it can actually be any skill if you try hard enough.
1) strength 4
2) weaponry 3
3) tiefling, +1 weaponry (4)
4) atlantean, weaponry can now go to 6 points, conjuration 1(call item)
5) swordsman
6) artifact 3, mithril bionic arm (+1k1 parry & throw)
inheritance 3, best quality short spear (+1k0 attack, +2 dmg, (s+2)k2 pen3, throwable)
7) maybe khorn
8) 200 XP, +1 weaponry (5)
100 XP, veteran of the wheel, +1 strength (5), +1 weaponry (6)
200 XP, +1 sword school - white raven (gain 1 free style point to use)
100 XP, special attack -> standard attack, cavalry weapon, +0k1 dmg, pen0, not used last round, -1k0 attack
3x hinderance
100 XP, +1 weapon proficiency (melee 1)
200 XP, +2 artifact oralchium shield (+2 damage, +3k0 parry, -0k0 attacking)
So this gets us a basic spear attack of 8k6r1(~45) @ 7k2r1+2(~23) R pen3, a shield parry of 11k7(~53), and a special spear attack of 7k6r1(~42) @ 7k3r1+2(~31) R pen0 & not if used last turn. Next we want to buy the power attack feat, armor feats, and the thrown weapon proficiency. We could also swap in ballistics for weaponry, assimar for tiefling, a gun kata class for swordsman, gun kata for the sword school, and change the artifact to a hunting rifle. This character could still have 3 intelligence & charisma and have a lore, tech-use, and persuasion skills at 3s.

B: Mega-Evoker. This is how you start out throwing around enough magic to nearly one-shot a lesser daemon.
1) charisma 4
2) performer 2, common lore 3
3) any, say gnome for WP(any) & AP(any)
4) atlantean, evocation 1(magic missile), reroll warp effects
5) initiate
6) artifact 3
7) likely tezeench
8) 200 XP, +2 artifact, wraithbone heart (reroll warp effects)
100 XP, linguist asset
100 XP veteran of the wheel, +1 charisma (5), +1 common lore (4)
4 hinderances
400 XP, divine ministration, hatred(heretics), peer(religion), minor magic
completed initiate class, next class is bard (level 2) although preacher is another option and the unallocated skills can allow you to qualify for any 1st level class.
200 XP Power stat +1, can spend 1 resource to +3 level & magic school for the next focus power test
So this character can spend a resource point to roll 9k5(~41) on the Focus Power test of Magic Missile while counting as a level 5 character for it. That averages five raises on the spell which gets us six missiles doing an average of 10 damage each. The default lesser incarnate daemon has 4 Resilience and 9 HP, meaning it takes 2 wounds per missile and dropping it (on average) to a crit 1 & crit 2. Energy crit 2 to the body is 1d5 level of fatigue on it's 3 Constitution, that gives us a (40%*40%) 16% chance of a fatigue KO on a lesser incarnate daemon _FOR A SINGLE HALF ACTION AND ONE RESOURCE POINT_. Plus the character rolls three or four times for any warp effects and chooses which ones they like, and they have a dot in another magic school. Nothing is stopping this character from loading up on physical attributes, acrobatics, ballistics, and buying a nice gun. Or they could have 3s and a 4 in the mental attributes and load up on brainy skills.

C: Mr. Disappointment. This is something like the only character we saw that was truly disappointing. It was originally constructed under the original rules, this is about as close as we can get with the revision.
1) strength 3, dexterity 2, constitution 4, intelligence 1, wisdom 2, willpower 4, charisma 1, fellowship 1, composure 3
2) brawling 3, athletics 3, acrobatics 2, intimidation 3, command 3, perception 3, academic lore 1
3) dragonborn, +1 strength (4), +1 intimidate (4), +1 command (4)
4) dragon blooded, water, +1 strength (5), tearing 1k1 claws
5) peasant
6) artifact 3, inheritance 3, fame 2
7) bahamut
8) 200 XP, +2 artifact, darksteel power-fist
200 XP, +2 inheritance, best quality power armor
150 XP, +1 brawling (4)
50 XP, +1 background, wealth
2x hinderance
100 XP, sturdy, +1 resilience
100 XP, blood of bahamut, claws & breath weapon @ +1k1 damage
Note that character had no feats, no ballistics, no weaponry, and no feats at starting. This means taking -14 to the static defense reducing them to zero defense, ineffective dodge, their only attack was 4k4(~23) brawling with a power-fist over their claws (and a lenient ruling about that letting it all stack) for something like 10k5(~43) pen6 + power & tearing. This character sucked down the damage and burned a Hero Point to survive it's second fight. It punched hard, but not much else. Specifically it's actually pretty bad at anything social because of low attributes and can't do much in the way of mental heavy lifting either. In fact you can very nearly build both of the previous two characters under the original rules, and they have much better options.

D: Hard to Kill.
1) strength 1, dexterity 2, constitution 4, intelligence 1, wisdom 4, willpower 4, charisma 3, fellowship 1, composure 1
2) weaponry 3, acrobatics 3,
3) squat, +1 constitution (5), +1 resilience vs damage, +1 craft (2)
4) daemonhost, reduce damage by con+power, healing 1(cure light wounds), recover resource by will(4k4(~22)) vs 10+2/spent
5) rat catcher (for raising dexterity and the +2 HP exit bonus)
6) artifact 3, hearthstone bracers, +2 ap, mithril hand weapon, +2 defense, +1 parry & feint
inheritance 3, machinator array, +1 strength (2), +1 resilience, -1 dexterity (1), no swimming
wealth 2
7) whatever, the paladin track gets you bonus AP and the rogue track gets you bonus Static Defense, several class tracks give extra Hit Points
8) 100 XP, veteran of the wheel, +1 wisdom (5), +1 weaponry (4)
100 XP, sturdy, +1 resilience
100 XP, +1 inheritance, +1 power armor (+resil +str(2) 12ap -2def 2maxDex)
100 XP, squat asset using Con instead of Dex for defense
100 XP, squat asset halving armor defense penalties
100 XP, asset academy, basic & melee 1
2x hinderances
100 XP, daemonhost asset sloth, +2 HP
100 XP, +1 dexterity (2)
This gives 20 HP, 7 Resilience, 36-7=29 Static Defense, -6 damage from anything not silver or magic spells, AP 14(all), 5k2(~17=8) dodge and 6k4(~30=15) parry. The character can evade and tank a lot of attacks, and you could change things up a bit by moving the artifact to something like an oralchum flak suit, or a necrometal flak helmet. That would let you get at a higher static defense dexterity for dodging, although at the expense of armor points. In that case you may be interested in the mercenary career as a starting point (although you can't get dexterity from it), or possibly peasant. The unallocated skills give you the option of entering the guardsman (although with one less weaponry skill), tech-priest, paladin, priest, and bard class tracks. One thing to do is buy a shield, that will increase your parrying to 8k4(~35=17). The character does suffer from several low attributes though.

E: Maximus Crappius. This is demonstration of how to create a character that has serious issues.
1) strength 4, dexterity 4, constitution 4, intelligence 1, wisdom 4, willpower 1, charisma 1, fellowship 1, composure 1
2) ballistics 3, acrobatics 3, athletics 2, medicae 3, perception 3, scrutiny 3, intimidate 1
3) human, +1 dexterity (5), +1 ballistics (4), +1 perception (4)
4) paragon, danger sense feat, human perseverance asset, +1 constitution (5)
5) conscript (you actually could do worse)
6) artifact 3,
inheritance 2, flak jacket, flak helmet
7) don't care
8) 100 XP veteran of the wheel, +1 wisdom (5), +1 acrobatics (4)
200 XP armor proficiency light, weapon proficiency ranged 2
200 XP sturdy & sand, +1 resilience & fatigue
100 XP +1 artifact, necrometal bolt pistol, -2k0 dodge
So this one shoots at 5k4 & -2k0 dodge, dodges at 8k4, AP 5(all) x2 vs blasts, Resilience 5, 14 HP, 32 Static Defense, and can do perception-medic-scrutiny all at 8k5. And that's it. Shoot good, dodge, spot, detect lies, and first aid. Outside of combat this character is basically helpless. Socially? This one can intimidate at 2k1 and everything else is at 1d10-1. Intellectually? Aside from medicine you're back at no rolls or 1d10-1. Also, fear effects are going to kick this one's butt.

F: Can Do. This is a character that can do just about anything. Well at least they can try with a real chance of success, unlike some of those other blokes.
1) strength 3, dexterity 3, constitution 3, intelligence 2, wisdom 3, willpower 2, charisma 3, fellowship 1, composure 1
2) common lore 3, performer 2, weaponry 2, ballistics 2, acrobatics 1, pilot 1, arcana 1, forbidden lore 1, medicae 1, politics 1, tech-use 1, disguise 1, persuade 1
3) tau, +1 composure (2), +1 common lore (4), +1 persuasion
4) paragon, danger sense feat, move & shoot asset, +1 intelligence (3)
5) minstrel (a legitimate 'little bit of everything' class)
6) contacts 2, allies 2, backing 2, followers 2
7) maybe slannesh?
8) 100 XP, veteran of the wheel, +1 willpower (3), +1 common lore (5)
100 XP, +1 fellowship (2)
200 XP, luck, jack of all trades
100 XP, academy, melee 2 & ranged 1
50 XP, +1 acrobatics (2)
50 XP, +1 arcana (2)
Now this character has 3s in all attributes but fellowship and composure (those are at 2), dots in all the advanced skills, dots in a lot of other skills, and a maxxed out common lore. Luck adds a daily reroll of anything, Jack Of All Trades gives us a bonus on the skills we don't have any dots in, we can participate in ranged, melee, and social combat without feeling incompetent, and grabbing the "Water" starter equipment package gets us an autopistol, fencing sword, mesh vest, and a good stiff drink. We have lots of friends, someone has our back, and eventually you'll buy into magic and/or sword schools. 12 HP, 4 Resilience, not really any armor yet, 20 Static Defense, 5k3(~23=11) dodge, 4k2(~16=8) parry, 3k2(~15=7) stabbing (aiming and/or ganging up helps), and 3k2 shooting (autofire is 5k3(~23)). Sure, you aren't a combat monster like some of the others. But the basic TN for most things is 15 and you start with 3 pressure points. Get to 3rd level and buy your Power stat up to 3 (OK, that's like 1300 XP away, it's a goal) and you'll have 9 pressure point plus get back 3 every round. Missing a TN by one or two points is something you don't have to worry about. Plus, that characters didn't take any hinderances (beyond the veteran of the wheel side effect, but you could do without that if you had to). You can totally pick something like Will To Live and Law Of The Stars to snag Appearance and Dangerous Beauty or start with a dot of a magic or sword school.

G: Speeding Ticket. This is a character specced for speed. It also helps that they're really surprisingly hard to kill and all around decently skilled.
1) strength 2, dexterity 4, constitution 3, intelligence 1, wisdom 4, willpower 2, charisma 2, fellowship 1, composure 2
2) arcana 1, academic lore 1, perception 1, medicae 1, forbidden lore 1, politics 1, brawling 3, acrobatics 2, stealth 2, larceny 1, animal ken 2, disguise 1, scrutiny 1
3) halfling, +1 intelligence (2), +1 larceny (2), +1 deceive
4) werewolf, wolf-form, war-form, regeneration, lycan resilience
5) outcast (not actually important, go with whatever you want)
6) artifact 3, mithril bionic legs, +2 speed, +2k0 acrobatics
inheritance 3, good quality bionic heart, fleet of foot feat, +2 armor gizzards
7) probably luna
8) 100 XP academy asset, melee 2 & ranged 1
100 XP veteran of the wheel, +1 dexterity (5), +1 brawling(4)
100 XP halfling agility asset, +4 static defense
100 XP werewolf asset, silent striders, transmutation 1 dot & +1k1 focus power, swift change
100 XP fast asset, +2 speed, run at x7
100 XP sturdy asset, +1 resilience
Here we have a character with 10 HP, 4 Resilience, lycan armor(1/4/6) & +2 gizzards, 40 Static Defense, 9k5(~40=20) dodge, and (part of the point of this whole thing) 11 speed with a run of 77. Fleet of foot lets you double that running speed, at a cost of course. Then there's the Transmutation magic at 6k5(~33) which you will probably mostly cast fettered at 3k3(~18). Swift change (TN 15) is nice but not amazing, next level you pick up Animal Power and you can boost your dexterity with it. You also have the wolf- and war- forms of a werewolf. Combined with the 4 dots of brawling you can fight pretty well, but it's the wolf-form with it's +2 dexterity, -1 size, regeneration, and quadruped trait. Wolf-form increases speed to 26 (run 184, fleet of foot to double that) and static defense to 40+12(halfling & dexterity)+2(size)=54, plus dodge. Sure, even you war-form melee damage isn't amazing at 6k1 but moving your skills around can qualify you for monk or one of the warrior classes that gets damage boosts or sword schools. We do suggest picking up a few dots of ballistics and a grenade or rocket launcher for blasts, or perhaps a good flamer. The 'hard to kill' part comes form your ability to skip into wolf-form (Swift Change, Free Action), run away (Run with Fleet of Foot, Full Action), hide (9k7 in wolf form ~50), and regenerate (might want to pick up healing magic to deal with wounds from silver weapons).

H: Buddy! This is a character with so many friends that pissing them off is like pissing off an army, a fleet, another party of exalts, and a zombie horde.
1) intelligence 4, charisma 3, fellowship 3
2) persuasion 2, scrutiny 2
3) gnome, +1 intelligence (5), any weapon & armor proficiency
4) vampire, +4 backgrounds, easy resource point regeneration
5) negotiator
6) allies, backing, followers, mentor, all at 3
7) don't care
8) 200 XP, +2 backing (5), admiral of a fleet
200 XP, +2 followers (5), 10k loyal troops
200 XP, +2 allies (5), five other Level 1 exalts
1x hinderance
100 XP, vampire asset, tremere, 1 dot necromancy & +1k1 focus power tests
optional 3x more hinderances
250 XP, contacts 4, a spy network?
50 XP, wealth? fame? status? artifact? raise a skill from 1 to 2?
This one is pretty rough on the SM, so get the OK first. You're getting serious social power through the courtier class track, plus another point of backing for each level of completion. You want 3rd level and 3 dots of necromancy to start animating the dead (you could go werewolf/transmutation and get the elemental/spirit allies thing going by changing the exaltation and asset). And you don't have to be bad in combat; take ballistics 3, put on flak armor, requisition a SAW and blaze away on full auto. If you drop the contacts to 3 you can get an asset like appearance (+2k0 some social rolls) or education (5 skill specialties). There's also the option of picking up the first level of the sorcerer class track to get necromancy normally, that frees up the vampire asset to be ventrue which gets you another peerage, a contact, and a wealth test bonus.

I: Speed Run. This character tries to skip through the classes as fast as possible to get to 5th level first.
1) whatever
2) academic lore 3, forbidden lore 3, weaponry 3, craft 2, acrobatics 1
3) dark eldarin, +1 dexterity/charisma, +1 deceive, +1 forbidden lore (4)
4) promethian, ignore all armor proficiency feats
5) initiate
6) whatever, followers and wealth is good for having repair minions around
7) whatever, not khorne though
8) 400 XP, divine ministration, hatred, minor magic(healing), peer
exit initiate, enter preacher via healing magic
200 XP, spell focus, sound constitution
4x hinderances
200 XP, Virgil's guidance, divine grace
exit preacher, enter defender via divine grace & peer
100 XP, veteran of the wheel, +1 attribute, +1 forbidden lore (5)
100 XP, true grit
The character needs to buy weaponry to 5 (250 XP), and 8 feats (800 XP) to get to level 5. After 5 more feats they can exit the chevalier class and proceed into anything they qualify for. This character has no weapon proficiencies (although there is an option to take one in the paladin class), modest healing abilities, and reasonable combat & social ability.

Final Advice:
Low attributes are weak points for your character. High attributes are great because they're both rolled and kept dice. In the original edition almost all magical saves were Arcana + Willpower, with a few Arcana + Constitution or Arcana + Wisdom. This revision has worked to vary the saves (and fear effects) so that Willpower isn't a sort of super-attribute. To this end a number of spells now call for saving throws using Intelligence, Fellowship, Composure, Strength, Size, and other attributes. While you're perfectly free to make a combat whore with 1s in Intelligence, Charisma, Fellowship, and Composure, it's going to hurt. It won't just be the rest of the party carrying you through social encounters and puzzles. A Mind Flayer can drop a 8k5 Stun spell on you averaging over 35 on the Focus Power test, meaning you need a 26+ Arcana + Composure to not be stunned for a round and then lose two half actions after that. You need at least 6k3 to average that, and Stun isn't the worst thing that can happen.

Perils of the warp probabilities. The literal worst case scenario character(s) for popping a warp roll, percent chances, simple mitigation, and two ways to make effective and safe (99.5%+ safety) casters.
APPENDIX FOO -- safe, boring, predictable magic
Safe casting

People are amazingly afraid of the magic system, they read the worst results on the perils of the warp charts and assume that they happen regularly. They look at the TNs of the spells and think they can't reliably cast spells without pushing the spell and invoking the warp. Obviously they haven't actually tried the magic system or checked the math. That's what we'll do here. Now let's fire up the calculators.

Let's take out worst case scenarios for having to roll for warp effects, vampire necromancers and werewolf transmuters. A vampire with the Tremere asset and 5 intelligence can roll 7k6 to cast a TN 15 first rank spell. 90% of the results are 28 or higher, massive overkill for a first rank spell. You can reliably cast third rank spells with that, before factoring in rerolls. Checking our handy probability chart (link & page ref) tells us that 5k4 has a 97% success rate for TN 15s, running that on the calculator get us 3.3% of the results in the 1-14 range. The chart is right, so looking at casting fettered we see that 3k3 gets us a 66% chance to cast TN 15 and the calculator says 67% +/- a couple 1/10s of a percent which nicely rounds down to 66%. Get yourself to 2nd level, spend 100xp to pick up the second rank of necromancy and you have 4k4, giving you a 90% chance to get TN 15 and 69% chance to get TN 20. Great, so you don't need to risk warp rolls to cast spells.

But what if you want to? Or maybe the character just has a 3 intelligence and is rolling that 5k4. Ok, probability check time. We'll do this the simple way, it's longer but more illustrative of how the probabilities work.

There is a 10% chance that any one die rolls a 10. All seven dice rolling 1-9s is .9*.9*.9*.9*.9*.9*.9 = .9^7 = .478 = 47.8% chance of rolling no 10s at all. But wait, we can drop a die. OXXXXXX = .9^6 (because we don't care what one of the dice is as we're dropping it) = 53.1% chance of six dice having no 10s. Now that's not the whole story, because we're dropping a die. 90% of the time we don't care if all six of the rest of the dice are _ALL_ 1-9, because we have a 7th die. We only care 10% of the time. And that's only considering if the first die is a 10, one of the later dice could be a 10 and get dropped instead. So working this out; 10%*53.1% is 5.31% which is the chance that the first die is a 10 and the rest are not 10s, and there are 7 dice that can turn up 10s so 7*5.31%=37.18% rounding to 38.3% means that is how often one of our dice is a 10 that we can drop. Add that to the 'no tens' odds and we get 37.2%+47.8% = 85%, or slightly better than a 5/6 chance that we don't get warp effects. Yup, that's pretty dangerous. You might want to consider not blindly casting at maximum power every time.

That's our worst case scenario, and it's a little risky. Too risky for some people. Let's do a bit better. An eldarin can take a racial trait to add +1k0 to all Focus Power tests, a dragon-blooded exalt has a +1k0 to all Focus Power tests, the Apprentice class offers you the feat Implement Focus to reroll any one die on a Focus Power test, a daemonhost exalt can spend a resource point to add their power stat as rolled dice on a Focus Power test, adding a second rank to your magic school adds another rolled die, and an atlantean exalt with their power stat at rank 2 can spend a resource point to add +3 to their rank for a Focus Power test. Let's just take that risky vampire necromancer and take them up to level 2, spending 100xp to get the second rank of Necromancy. Now they're rolling 8k6, dropping two dice (why you've decided not to cast fettered for a first rank spell is your problem). Frankly this is where the math starts getting annoying. We've decided not to write out what hundreds of college statistics book have written over the past century and more, if you want the full explanation you can look it up somewhere. Run through our stats calculator we ended up with a 3.8% chance of having to roll for a warp event on 8k6, that's a 96% safety rate and the warp still isn't guaranteed to be anything more than a nuisance or harmless cosmetic change to the environment. Going with 7k6 and rerolling a die is slightly easier math, that 15% warp chance comes from having 2+ dice on 10s. Now if it's 3+ dice showing 10s you're out of luck, but that's a 2.6% occurrence and the remaining 15%-2.6% = 12.4% of the time it's two dice with 10s. Reroll one of them and you have a 90% chance of it not being a 10, so 12.4%*90% = 11.16% safety in addition to the base 85% safety of 7k6 gives us 97.16% safe spell casting. So adding just a single die reroll takes our worst case scenario from 15% warp events down to 2.8% warp events, even safer than increasing your rolled dice by 1.

So, ya want to case spell safely? Let's go all-in on safety here. Dragon-blooded eldarin apprentice with an implement and a wraithbone bionic heart. That's 3 background points, 100xp for a 4th background point, 100xp for a racial asset, 200xp for a magic school, and 100xp for the Tested feat. If they have the full 5 attribute for the magic school they roll 7k5, reroll one die, and roll four times on the warp tables, finally picking the roll that they like best. So 7k5 gives us a 2.57% warp rate, of which 2.3 of that is three 10s, rerolling saves us 90% reducing it to 2.57-2.3+(2.3*.9) = 0.5% chance of rolling on the warp tables. We roll twice on the default Book 1 chart (p.152) at +5, each has a 30% chance of kicking up from the Psychic Phenomena table to the Perils of the Warp table, and each has a 18% chance to get an actually potentially dangerous result on the perils table. Those run out to a 9% chance at both rolls being Perils, a 3.78% chance at one roll being Perils and the other being dangerous, plus a 3.24% chance of both rolls being dangerous. Which all comes to a grand total of .00045% chance of Perils of the Warp and .00035% chance of a dangerous Psychic Phenomena roll, all-in-all a .0008% chance of actual danger. This means that for this character casting spell has a similar chance of causing a warp roll as a random American driving 330 miles (530 km) will have of having an automobile accident, and the rate of potentially dangerous warp events is about twice that as the American has of being killed in the accident.

Another method of achieving safety is an atlantean exalt with a wraithbone bionic heart using their rank 2 power stat ability to add +3 to a magic school for a Focus Power test. That gives them three more rolled dice to drop, and being an atlantean they could already roll a warp effect twice and choose which result they wanted. Combined with the wraithbone bionic heart they'll roll any warp effects four times and get to choose one.

Also a Chosen of Tzeench is quite safe as they, personally, don't suffer from the warp effects. Sure, you can still tech scorn (Book 1, p.152) the helicopter you're riding in. But being an exalt in a helicopter in this game is just asking to get blown out of the sky anyways. Besides, you should have remembered to pack a parachute.

Surviving an orbital strike. Or, "how I learned to stop worrying and stat up the npcs coming for revenge"
Appendix K -- Surviving orbital strikes. ************************************************** *********************

So your players decided the best thing to do was to take off and nuke a city from orbit, or maybe there's just one person in the city they really don't like and they don't care about collateral damage. Your question now is "who lived? and just how pissed off are they?". Well we've tried to do some calculations for you on the 'who' part of that.

First, who is how tough?
resilience chart
size level 1/2/3/4/5
2 3/3/4/4/5
3 3/4/4/5/5
4 4/4/5/5/6
5 4/5/5/6/6

Second, how many of them are there?
assumption - 70% per level, therefore 70% of the population is level 1, then 70% of the remaining 30% is level 2, etc.
Second part two, how many hit points do they have?
assumption - 70% per dot > 1, therefore 70% have con+will of 4, then 70% of the remaining 30% have a con+will of 6, etc.

L1: .7=1@4 4/6/8/10 => .49=16, .147=24, .0441=32, .0189=40
L2: .21=2@4 4/6/8/10 => .147=16, .0441=24, .01323=32, .00567=40
L3: .063=3@5 4/6/8/10 => .0441=20, .01323=30, .003939=40, .001701=50
L4: .0189=4@5 4/6/8/10 => .01332=20, .003939=30, .0011907=40 .0005403=50
L5: .0081=5@6 4/6/8/10 => .00567=24, .001701=36, .0005103=48 .0002187=60

Third, rounding happens, we multiply HP by resilience to get a damage threshold
This gives us how much damage it takes to run someone out of hit points
16=.64, 24=.25, 32=.075, 40=.03, 50=.0041, 60=.0008, more=.0001

Fourth, more rounding, assuming that half the hits are explosive and half are energy we check the critical charts to determine the percentage chance of a level of critical damage resulting in death (bleeding + stun/KO = death here). Cross referenced with our damage limits we get how many of what hit point levels will survive a specific amount of damage.

tuf=>.5 .1 .05
16=>28,32,36 => 25=.68, 30=.42
24=>36,40,44 => 35=.23, 40=.13
32=>44,48,52 => 45=.07, 50=.04
40=>55,60,65 => 55=.02, 60=.008
50=>65,70,75 => 65=.003, 70=.0013
60=>78,84,90 => 80=.0005, 85=.0002
90+=.0001

You can use this chart to find the chance that any particular person survived a particular bombardment. Multiply their hit points by their resilience and look it up in the 'tough' column, rounding up or down based on armor, feats, traits, and your estimation of their circumstances. Check your damage amount from the bombardment. If it's in the range of the three numbers you can roll percentage dice for their survival; the '.5' column is 50%, the '.1' column is 10%, and the '.05' column is 5%. Remember that bleeding + being incapacitated (stun/fatigue) results in a fair number of the deaths at the .5 and .1 levels. If something is immune to bleeding, stunning, fatigue, etc., then it is pretty much certain to survive in those columns.

Fifth, we collapse step four into a general chart to tell up what the overall population survival rate is.

damage done in area = survival rate
25=68% (~half are 1st level)
30=42% (~90% are level 2+)
35=23% (~half are 2nd level)
40=13% (~90% are level 3+)
45= 7% (~half are 3rd level)
50= 4% (~90% are level 3+)
55= 2% (~half are 4th level)
60= .8% (~90% are level 5)
65= .3% (~99% are level 5
70= .13% (~99.9% are level 5)
80= .05% (level 5s)
85= .02% (level 5s)
90+=.001% (level 5s)

Find the amount of damage done to an area and you'll know what percentage of the population survived and have some idea of what levels they are. These numbers are for non-exalts and normal people. So NOT stuff that doesn't bleed, stun, fatigue, have double HP or inherent armor, has Con/Will/Level stat(s) at 6+, has Resilience/Size at 7+, gets Hero Points, etc. We aren't considering being inside buildings, being under cover, behind a car, etc., because a lot of that stuff is going to fall down, explode, or catch fire. We just assume that the resulting wreckage kills as many people as being covered saves.

As an example say a city has a million people. It takes an array hit that covers 60% of the city, 600,000 bodies. Damage is rolled at 53, evenly spread across the whole area because it's an array bombardment. Look at the chart... 4% survival, that's 24,000 survivors, 90% are level 3+. If we want more detail we check that 1% of the 32s survived, about than 50% of the 40s survived, and everyone higher made it out OK. 32=.075*.05=2250, 40=.03=18000, 50=.0041=2460, 60=.0008=480, more=.0001=60 == 23250, so what's 750 missing people between friends anyways? Now the 60s are all level 5, the 50s are .001701 level 3s with 5s in stats, .0005403 level 4s with 5s in stats, and .0005103 level 5s with 4s in stats. Meaning the 50s are about a 3/1/1 split between 3s/4s/5s, 2450/5=490 yields about 1500 level 3s, 500 level 4s and 500 level 5s (there's 50 of our missing people, rounding errors). Repeat for the 40s gives us .001701 L5s, .003939 L4s, .01323 L3s, .00567 L2s, and .0189 L1s, sum is .04344. Now .0189/.04344=.435, .435*18000=7830, that's how may level 1 people with 5s in constitution and willpower survived. You can repeat all that to find and population segment you want.

Modrons: Our games ended up with lots of "blast the place from orbit and run away real fast" where modrons were concerned. Even when the place being blasted was an inhabited space. So lets use them as an example of how we handled exceptional critters getting nuked. The base monodrone has Resilience 5, 10 HP, True Grit (half critical damage), AP 4(all), Regeneration(1), Stuff of Nightmares, and 'We'll Be Back'. So they're a 5*10=50, but instead of the +15 more damage to reach crit-3 the True Grit feat makes it +30 more damage, except that Stuff of Nightmares and Regeneration makes it take a full crit-5 to put one down. That looks like another +20, meaning we need around 100 damage to reliably crit-kill a monodrone. Then 'We'll Be Back' gives them a 34.5% chance to just stand back up anyways. This actually makes all out math easier. We simply ignore any bombardment less than 100 damage, then 35% survive each bombardment (blame any rounding errors on armor and cover). Duodrones are 6*16 = 96+(30[crit-5]*2[true grit]) = 156 damage and a little more armor plus they still get the same 'We'll Be Back'. It's a shame that the PCs never stuck around to find out just how ineffective their array based area saturation orbital bombardments were. Modrons are practically immune to anything short of direct hits by lance weapons and torpedoes.

Buildings & Cover: -- 2 column format
damage, effect on cover/buildings, this gives you an idea of what sort of structures will still be standing after a bombardment. check the cover table on page ?? of book 1 for examples of types of cover.

3, ap 2 @ 50% -> now ap 1
5, ap 2 destroyed
4, ap 3 @ 50% -> now ap 2
8, ap 3 destroyed
9, ap 4 @ 50% -> now ap 2
10, ap 5 @ 50% -> now ap 3
12, ap 4 destroyed
17, ap 5 destroyed
16, ap 6 @ 50% -> now ap 3
19, ap 7 @ 50% -> now ap 4
23, ap 6 destroyed
27, ap 8 @ 50% -> now ap 4
30, ap 7 destroyed
31, ap 9 @ 50%
38, ap 8 destroyed
41, ap 10 @ 50%
47, ap 9 destroyed
52, ap 11 @ 50%
57, ap 10 destroyed
59, ap 12 @ 50%
64, ap 13 @ 50%
68, ap 11 destroyed
78, ap 14 @ 50%
80, ap 12 destroyed
85, ap 15 @ 50%
93, ap 13 destroyed
101, ap 16 @ 50%
107, ap 14 destroyed
109, ap 17 @ 50%
122, ap 15 destroyed
127, ap 18 @ 50%
135, ap 19 @ 50%
138, ap 16 destroyed
155, ap 17 destroyed
156, ap 20 @ 50%
166, ap 21 @ 50%
173, ap 18 destroyed
188, ap 22 @ 50%
192, ap 19 destroyed
199, ap 23 @ 50%
212, ap 20 destroyed
223, ap 24 @ 50%
233, ap 21 destroyed
255, ap 22 destroyed
278, ap 23 destroyed
302, ap 24 destroyed

You can also use this chart for general cover damage, but be aware that this is calculated as 'big hit to the whole thing' damage. Generally smaller weapons (bullets, lasers) put smaller holes in stuff, that's why cover AP degrades one at a time. We like to degrade cover AP multiple levels at a time for explosives, short range shotguns, and big full auto bursts (reduce AP by # shots at the max, no matter how much damage was done). That's where this chart could come in handy, when you're talking wide structural damage to the cover instead of little holes.

************************************************** **************
APPENDIX L -- how to throw bombs

The blast vs. bag of rats issue. So you chuck a krak grenade at someone, there's no blast radius on it so you have to hit their static defense. Ok, no problems, works like all the other attacks. You chuck a frag grenade with a blast(4) at them and miss... Where'd the grenade go? Say you want to blow up several people at once (not minions) so you're trying to land the grenade in the middle of them... What's the TN? Blast radius makes this important and it's unaddressed in the original base rules. You can theoretically place a small shielded remote control vehicle (rarity uncommon, size 1, static defense 5 @ mom 1-5, man -4, vtol, remote control, void shield 1, 6m/mom, speed 1, accel 3, and going to size 2 with a void 15 for the same price isn't hard) next to your target and throw explosives at that. We tried TN 5 & TN 10 to land a shot at an unmoving spot, that had issues because it meant nobody ever missed dropping a grenade exactly 1m away from their target. What to do?

We came up with the following setup for blast weapons:

You shoot directly at the person and miss? You miss by 1m per range increment per check on the attack roll (1m at short, 2m at normal, 3m at long, 4m at extreme). Estimate the surrounding area and randomize a scatter (we have a die with arrows on it or use a d12 for a clock face directional). If it's not some indirect, arcing, attack (or a shot from above?) then don't just scatter it across a flat map on the table. Figure what it would look like from the shooter's point of view and scatter that way (make pictures), the shot could go off into space or hit a low wall right in front of you.

You want to shoot at a point near someone to catch them (or several people) in the blast? Roll your attack and add the blast number to the total (roll a 24 with a blast(4) and it's 24+4=28). Check that number against all their static defenses and see if there's a spot that would get everyone hit and exclude everyone missed. That's where it lands. The nice bit about this is that as it's not a direct attack it can't be dodged without a stunt that uses the environment to gain cover, and then that's just cover so it can still potentially penetrate to deal damage. If you missed the shot do the normal scatter as above but the minimum distance is whatever is required to miss then whole group.

The explanation behind all this, the 'fiction layer' or 'narration' if you like that terminology, is that the character is trying to hit a moving target. When you do that you lead the target, shoot at where it's going to be when the shot gets out to that range. Since most explosives are thrown or launched at lower velocities you have to take a bigger lead with them. So you try to anticipate where the target will be when your shot/pitch will get there and make the throw. The misses are potentially a combination of bad guessing, bad timing, bad aim, and/or the target being able to see the incoming projectile and move somewhere else.

Yeah, it doesn't fix a knocked out rat 1m from someone being auto-hit (unconscious & helpless conditions, book 1, p.??) and automatically catching the other guy in the blast. We can't fix everything for you. Just don't be a jerk-ass about it and everything should work out. If someone is being a jerk about it point out that the rules work the same for the NPCs as it does for the PCs. What one person does, another person can replicate.

Oops. Accidentally copied the blast weapon advice too. Ok.

[Cluedrew]

So here I am providing the best feedback I can with no understanding of the rules. (I also somehow completely forgot about A-C, so I have nothing to say on them.)

On Zero-G: Only hiccup is I did not immediately realise that braced and out-of-control are not opposites. Maybe give not braced but still in control a name, say floating, controlled or stable. But I figured that out a few lines later and everything else seems to be at a consistent level of detail.

On Characters: Maybe use the actual section names instead of the numbers. Otherwise I think some additional formatting would help, put that is a pretty good spread of characters. I think the system is uniform enough (or perhaps the opposite) that between the combat and social examples you have roughly laid out how to be good at something, you got the generalist and a couple counter examples. Seems like a good spread. I guess you could consider moving some of the general advice to character creation directly but a pointer from there to here would avoid bloat for those who just want to see the rules. Do you have reference to the appendices in the main text already?

On Warp: This is actually a very clever addition. I haven't double checked the math but everything seems good. This one I think could be really trimmed down because I think you don't need the explanation of the math in the middle. Maybe I'm miss-judging but between those who don't care about the math and those who would do it themselves, you could just say the name of the distribution, show (but don't explain) the math for each case and then elaborate on the result. Disclaimer: I've done work on my own dice mechanics before so I might be a bit of an outlier. The on other hand is there anything you can say about once a warp effect happens how bad it is likely to be. That is an honest question I have completely forgotten.

On Explosions: I just had trouble following these. Maybe you could open with the results and then explain them, or at least highlight the bit at the end that has the concrete advice. Also in the "tuf" table there are rows with two "=>" and I'm not sure what everything to the right of those. I also have trouble with the buildings/cover table, the destroyed entries seem pretty clear but I'm not sure why they are mixed with 50% entries and only some of those reduce ap. On a less practical note the fact that this section exists makes me very happy for some reason.

[Telok]

Thanks. Book 1 is done, I'm only occasionally adding annotations or removing or changing a number or two. Latest hasn't been uploaded and don't recall if the last link (4ish note adding sessions ago) is still live. I replaced like a 20-30 page terrible "example of play" and then added another 20-30 pages. All appendices.

Book 1 has to stand alone. I mentioned book 2 but didn't reference it. Also didn't know if I'd be adding pages in book 2 so couldn't be sure of page numbers.

And... family interrupt lost train of thought more later maybe. But thanks.

Edit: ok, couple days later.

A little clarify early in zg combat.

More explain of warp threats and a % compare of auto roller vs book tables (need search back in this thread, I did one of those).

Recheck and maybe more comments in character gen in book 1 - also I recall there is some char gen advice in the dice probability & setting TM appendix in book 1, maybe. Labels instead of numbers, page refs for stuff.

Another pass on orbital bombardment. Less math, more labels on the tables. The "tuf" thing is because dmg/resil = wounds so you can hp*resil = dmg, but people die from crits. I don't normally worry in most combats for most nameless enemies, they definite go runner at 0 hp and down on the next hit. But technially people die from crit effects, and for the E & X crits potential death effects happen 5/10 hit locations at crit 3 & 8 or 9 /10 for crit 4. So there's a sort of "almost negative hp" where people get broken limbs & KOs but survive. So a resil 4, hp 4, normal takes 16 dmg to hit 0 hp and another 12 dmg to get crit 3, meaning a 28 dmg hit to 50% kill a normal non-combatant peasant.

[Telok]

Ok, updated safe safe magic use blarg. Has brute force calculated probabilities.
APPENDIX FOO -- safe, boring, predictable magic
Safe casting

People are amazingly afraid of the magic system, they read the worst results on the perils of the warp charts and assume that they happen regularly. They look at the TNs of the spells and think they can't reliably cast spells without pushing the spell and invoking the warp. Obviously they haven't actually tried the magic system or checked the math. That's what we'll do here. Now let's fire up the calculators.

Let's take out worst case scenarios for having to roll for warp effects, vampire necromancers and werewolf transmuters. A vampire with the Tremere asset and 5 intelligence can roll 7k6 to cast a TN 15 first rank spell. 90% of the results are 28 or higher, massive overkill for a first rank spell. You can reliably cast third rank spells with that, before factoring in rerolls. Checking our handy probability chart (link & page ref) tells us that 5k4 has a 97% success rate for TN 15s, running that on the calculator get us 3.3% of the results in the 1-14 range. The chart is right, so looking at casting fettered we see that 3k3 gets us a 66% chance to cast TN 15 and the calculator says 67% +/- a couple 1/10s of a percent which nicely rounds down to 66%. Casting fettered is always perfectly safe and you succeed 2/3rds of the time. Get yourself to 2nd level, spend 100xp to pick up the second rank of necromancy and you have 4k4 when casting fettered, giving you a 90% chance to get TN 15 and 69% chance to get TN 20. Great, so you don't need to risk warp rolls to cast spells.

But what if you want to? Or maybe the character just has a 3 intelligence and is rolling that 5k4. Ok, probability check time. We'll do this the simple way, it's longer but more illustrative of how the probabilities work.

There is a 10% chance that any one die rolls a 10. All seven dice rolling... You know what? We had a long math thing going here. Then we decided to use technology, wrote a little script, and brute forced our statistics. Trust us or do the work yourself, the brute force tests matched our math results and were more precise. We made the computer roll each test a million times.
kept none: 0.850049
kept 1: 0.124257
kept 2: 0.022996
kept 3: 0.002514
kept 4: 0.000177
kept 5: 0.000007
A 1/6 chance of having to roll for warp crap. Yup, that's pretty dangerous. You might want to consider not blindly casting at full power every time.

That's our worst case scenario (well 10k10 would be the worst but we can't get there), and it's a little risky. Too risky for some people. Let's do a bit better. An eldarin can take a racial trait to add +1k0 to all Focus Power tests, a dragon-blooded exalt has a +1k0 to all Focus Power tests, the Apprentice class offers you the feat Implement Focus to reroll any one die on a Focus Power test, a daemonhost exalt can spend a resource point to add their power stat as rolled dice on a Focus Power test, adding a second rank to your magic school adds another rolled die, and an atlantean exalt with their power stat at rank 2 can spend a resource point to add +3 to their rank for a Focus Power test. Let's just take that risky vampire necromancer and take them up to level 2, spending 100xp to get the second rank of Necromancy. Now they're rolling 8k6, dropping two dice (why you've decided not to cast fettered for a first rank spell is your problem).
kept none: 0.962162
kept 1: 0.032825
kept 2: 0.004586
kept 3: 0.000403
kept 4: 0.000024
Run through our stats calculator we ended up with a 3.7838% chance of having to roll for a warp event on 8k6, that's better than a 96% safety rate and the warp still isn't guaranteed to be anything more than a nuisance or harmless cosmetic change to the environment.

Going with 7k6 and rerolling a die is easier. We'll reroll every time get get a single 10, therefore we add the times we kept one 10 to the times we kept zero 10s, 85.0049+12.4257 = 97.4306% safe. So adding just a single die reroll takes our worst case scenario from 15% warp events down to 2.6% warp events, even safer than increasing your rolled dice by 1.

So, ya want to cast spells safely? Let's go all-in on safety here. Dragon-blooded eldarin apprentice with an implement and a wraithbone bionic heart. That's 3 background points, 100xp for a 4th background point, 100xp for a racial asset, 200xp for a magic school, and 100xp for the Tested feat. If they have the full 5 attribute for the magic school they roll 7k5, reroll one die, and roll four times on the warp tables, finally picking the roll that they like best.
kept none: 0.974393
kept 1: 0.022938
kept 2: 0.002486
kept 3: 0.000174
kept 4: 0.000009
So 7k5 gives us a 2.5607% warp rate, of which 2.2938 of that is three 10s rolled forcing us to keep a 10. Rerolling saves us 90% reducing it to 2.56-2.3+(2.3*.9) = 0.5% chance of rolling on the warp tables. Once out of every 200 casts, before we level up and buy the next dot of magic and get even safer. We roll twice on the default Book 1 chart (p.152) at +5, each has a 30% chance of kicking up from the Psychic Phenomena table to the Perils of the Warp table, and each has a 18% chance to get an actually potentially dangerous result on the perils table. Those run out to a 9% chance at both rolls being Perils, a 3.78% chance at one roll being Perils and the other being dangerous, plus a 3.24% chance of both rolls being dangerous. Which all comes to a grand total of .00045% chance of Perils of the Warp and .00035% chance of a dangerous Psychic Phenomena roll, all-in-all a .0008% chance of actual danger (that being any insanity gain, hit point damage, 1d5 Fatigue, daemon summoning, and of course the instant death results). This means that for this character casting spell has a similar chance of causing a warp roll as a random American driving 330 miles (530 km) will have of having an automobile accident, and the rate of potentially dangerous warp events is about twice that as the American has of being killed in the accident.

Just in case you're interested the "danger level" of the warp tables is:
Psychic phenomena: 3% 1 insanity if rolling a with a mod less than +10, 3% Fear(1), 3% fall 1d10m, 3% 1d5 wounds & Fear(2), 3% tech jamming & if bionics save Con 15 vs 1d5 wounds, 26+mod % chance of rolling on the Perils table. That's 15% chance of insanity/hp/fear/tech danger plus the 26+% chance of going to the higher table leaving a 59-mod "safe" result.
Perils of the warp (there's no +mod on this roll, straight d100): 1% instant death, 30% insanity (8% 1d5, 5% Will-20 vs id5, 9% Will-25 vs 1d10, 8% Will-30 vs 3d10), 31% out (5% Will-20 1d5 rounds, 4% 1d5 rounds, 10% Will-15 1 round, 8% 1d10 rounds, 9% Will-30 1d10 weeks), 25% damage (8% 1d5 wounds, 5% fall 1d10m, 8% worse of spell hits self or 1d5 wounds, 4% 3d10 damage), 5% no casting for 1 hour, 4% no casting 1d5 hours, 5% all spells cause a roll on the Perils of the Warp (not Psychic phenomena) table for 1d5 rounds, 4% lose all unspent Hero Points, 8% all future Peril & Phenomena rolls at +10 (yeah, that's bad because it applies to the Perils table and is a +10% increase to the instant death result), 44% area effects can hit allies, 12% "safe" (blind & deaf or teleporting)

Now there is a custom warp effects roller included in this PDF. It does require a PDF reader that can handle fillable forms that auto-calculate, but it has bigger and more complex tables. This is nice when you have someone at the table who can't seem to restrain themselves from overcasting and has apparently never heard of this funky "fettered" thing. The default tables get old after about 20 rolls or so. The auto-warp calculator takes a number, that's supposed to be your +40 from a un-Tested sorcerer overcasting a 4th rank spell or whatever, rolls 1d100 and adds them. There are four tables of increasing severity. Each table has a 3% chance of rolling on the next higher table with a -10 (minimum -10) applied to the number that you entered. Really it's any roll of 96+, having a 1d100+40 really puts you at a 45% chance of getting to table #2. That -10 is cumulative, which means getting to the 4th table with the instant death effects using that +40 takes 1d100+40 > 45%, then 1d100+30 > 35%, then 1d100+20 > 25%, a total of 4% with a +40 mod*. That's when the roll (1d100-10 now) gets to the most dangerous table. On table #4 each instant death effect has a 1d10 roll, on a 1-7 you go roll on table #3 instead. On a 8-10 you get a spectacular death and may or may not choose to burn a Hero Point to avoid it. The instant death effects compose about 11% of table #4.

Its all hideously complicated, but the computer does all the rolling for you. All of it. If there's a random duration, range, damage amount, etc., it rolls that for you. The formatting may not always be perfect, but the numbers are correct. And by percentage chances it really is overall safer than the default tables. Of course table #4 has the full range of major horrible and dangerous things that can happen, major daemons, warp vortexes, the sorcerer just exploding along with all the ammo he was carrying and taking out people standing too close to him (that's actually really really rare it only came up once in a year of weekly session with Mr."didn't read the magic rules rolls warp at +50 and likes causing warp effects", plus he burned a Hero Point and enough of him survived to go full body cyborg).

Just in case you're interested the "danger level" of these warp tables (percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number):
Table #1: 72% safe (really just cosmetic SFX), 2% arachnophobes test Feat(1), 7% hinderances (Enemy, Hunted, Grim Servant O' Death) trigger, 2% Fear(1), 2% casting triggers a warp roll for 1 round, 2% 1d10+5-armor damage to the head, 4% 1 insanity point (all have saves), 2% linked to another character for the session to share insanity & fear tests, 4% animals are frightened, 8% affect an area or allies (dangerous results only, many safe results affect an area), 5% roll twice at no bonus and cannot go to the next table, 5% go to the next table at -10 modifier.
Table #2: 26% "safe", 7% 1 insanity (3/4 have a save), 17% 1 Fatigue (half have a save), 4% Fear(1), 2% Fear(2), 4% bionics take 1d5 wounds (half have a save), 4% 1d10 damage, 2% 2d10 damage, 2% 3d10-aura damage, 2% fall 1d10m, 4% 1d5 insanity, 19% save vs 1d5 insanity, 4% save dex vs on fire, 5% stun 1d5 rounds (2/3 have a save), 4% save or out 1 rounds, 2% out 1d10 rounds, 4% roll on the Trauma table (Book1, p.XX), 2% alignment check, 2% no casting for 1 hour, 2% tech outage, 56% area effects, 5% roll twice at no bonus and cannot go to the next table, 5% go to the next table at -10 modifier.
Table #3 (83% have saves to avoid the effects): 11% "safe", 48% affect an area, 16% out 1d5 rounds, 5% 1d5 insanity, 3% 1 insanity, 13% out 1d10 rounds, 10% 1d10 wounds, 3% roll on the Trauma table, 3% bionics take 1d5 wounds, 10% 1d10 insanity, 8% 3d10 or 4d10 damage, 5% summon a level 2 or 3 daemonic opponent, 3% roll on the Degeneration table, 8% 2d10 insanity, 3% roll on the Shock table, 3% save dex or on fire, 3% +30 to warp rolls for 2d10 minutes, 3% 1 Fatigue, 8% stunned 1 round, 5% worse of casting the spell on yourself or 2d10+5-aura damage, 3% Fear(3), 3% all casting causes warp rolls for 1d5 rounds, 3% 1d5 wounds, 3% fall 1d10m, 3% no spell casting for 1 hour, 5% roll twice at no bonus and cannot go to the next table, 5% go to the next table at -10 modifier.
Table #4 (most are multiple effects and about half have saves): 0% "safe" (c'mon, really?), 62% affect an area, 9% 1d5 insanity, 6% 1d2 insanity, 3% 1d10 insanity, 6% 2d10 insanity, 3% 3d10 insanity, 6% auto-kill, 17% 7/10 roll on table #3 & 3/10 auto-kill (equals +5% auto-kill & 12% table #3), 20% 2d10 or 3d10 damage, 6% 1d5 wounds, 7% 5d10 damage, 3% 7d10 damage, 3% 1d5 Fatigue, 3% fall 1d10*3 meters, 3% Fear(2), 6% Fear(3), 12% no casting for 1d5 hours, 3% no casting for 1 hour, 3% everyone's warp rolls are at +20 for the rest of the scene, 3% all casting causes warp rolls, 3% all future warp rolls are at +10, 3% out for 1d5 rounds, 3% out for 1d10 weeks, 6% all save (TN 15) vs daemonic possession, 1% sorcerer is possessed by a daemon, 6% warp vortex wanders the area destroying stuff, 6% summon a greater daemon, 4% save dex or on fire, 3% summon a greater more greater daemon, 1% sorcerer's ammo cooks off, 3% everyone loses unspent Hero Points, 1% sorcerer gouges out his own eyes and gains 100 insanity, 3% roll twice on table #4 ignoring further 'roll twice' results.


A simple method of achieving safety is an atlantean exalt with a wraithbone bionic heart using their rank 2 power stat ability to add +3 to a magic school for a Focus Power test. That gives them three more rolled dice to drop, and being an atlantean they could already roll a warp effect twice and choose which result they wanted. Combined with the wraithbone bionic heart they'll roll any warp effects four times and get to choose one.

Also a Chosen of Tzeench is quite safe as they, personally, don't suffer from the warp effects. Sure, you can still tech scorn (Book 1, p.152) the helicopter you're riding in. But being an exalt in a helicopter in this game is just asking to get blown out of the sky anyways. Besides, you should have remembered to pack a parachute.

* The chances of tables by modifier is:
+0: t1: 95%, t2: 05%, t3: 0%, t4: 0%
+10: t1: 85%, t2: 14.2%, t3: 00.8%, t4: 0%
+20: t1: 75%, t2: 21.3%, t3: 03.6%, t4: 00.2%
+30: t1: 65%, t2: 26.2%, t3: 07.4%, t4: 01.3%
+40: t1: 55%, t2: 29.2%, t3: 11.8%, t4: 03.4%
+50: t1: 45%, t2: 30.3%, t3: 16.1%, t4: 08.7%
+60: t1: 35%, t2: 29.3%, t3: 19.7%, t4: 16.1%

[QuadraticGish]

Just tried to access the draft but it mentioned that the file was in the trash so I can't take a look at it unfortunately. Are you taking in example PCs?

[Telok]

Oh, sorry. There's been a series of more notes added and I found & fixed an error in the vehicle builder. I'll see about upping book 1 and a sample page of book 2 tonight.

I accept all suggestions, most will get into the book. Especially because the sample characters will be an appendix.

EDIT: OK new link
Book 1 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_5tdcdZGgtx8ipbmgfnyWjpDmCPWw9F/view?usp=sharing)
The vehicle builder hasn't been updated in this copy yet, it won't tell you the length, a couple ultra auto-cannon damages are off, I ditched the turret concept as is stands in the builder for something simpler in the book, and there's an error in the kph calculations when using XL engines. The spaceship builder has a couple upcoming enhancements too, but nothing's wrong with it.

Book 2 sample vehicle page 1 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G8gRQm6Qsb2ZuWkt0WB2dzaBDPNFUbhX/view?usp=sharing)

Sample vehicle page 2 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PGB5JrUZ9qtffKyzOd8KlsfOUX0bsKVr/view?usp=sharing)

EDIT EDIT: And I just spotted an error in the warp crap explanation up above. Will fix before it goes in.

[Telok]

Update. Book 2 first pass editing through p.133, only ~45 pages to go. A little bit more typing on appendices, got an extremely quick & dirty 1-page vehicle rules to check out soon. Working on space combat advice & optional rules.

Edit: been estimate testing, think all vehicle weapons are getting another +5 damage and the cqc are getting +5 more dmg & pen on top of that. Sample combat vehicles having a hard time hurting each other.

[Telok]

Changed dragon blooded exalt more. Tell aura became: 2-3 = penalty enemy melee attack & parry, 4-5 = fear 1, 6+ = fear @ power stat. Need to explicit that melee malus stacks with fear.

Double air defense bonus, double fire damage bonus, earth change from size bonus to resilence & require floor instead of dirt/stone, water &wood swapped claw effects.

DB adamic asset changing. Need make explicit & highlight that replaces quickening. All will get claw pen = power stat. Metal keeps resilience, regain 1 resource on 3 die stunt, claws get razor sharp (page ref). Void stay same & but claws gain proven (page ref) at 1/2 level, round up. Heart make explicit can spend multiple breath for social dice, claws gain power field and can parry weapons. Add warp quickening, claws have orgone (page ref), gain 1 dot evocation, evoke always in class, +0k1 evoke casting, at power stat 5 replace max dragoning with warp vortex spell, reroll instant death perils of the warp effects.

Edit: also fooled with classes a bit. Mostly the ship officer classes. All L3 ship officers have Lend Expertise & the command-politic-presuade skills on class. Captain (L3) requires Lend Expertise or command of a ship, and it has Lend Expertise as a feat. So get in through a L3 officer and it's a 3 feat class. Captain & commodore exit bonuses changed to +1 backing & +1 holdings (spelljammer).

Found an unused feat. No classes or anything had the Dicipline feat. Added it to some classes as a replacement or an OR option. Cleaned up the feat list table a little.

[QuadraticGish]

Oh, that's something. One of the example characters I was gonna contribute is a Dragon Blood.(Specifically Dragonborn for the double dragon fun.) Actually that's a question. Are there any special interactions with the breath weapon from Dragonborn and the one from 3 Power Dragon Blooded? What about the claws you get from Dragon Blooded and potentially a set from Tiefling?

[Telok]

Good question. I've always leaned towards them being separate-ish. The d-born breath is 1/scene, cranking up to 2 @ L3 and 3 @ L5. The d-blood breath is 1/2 resource.

Also, changed db resource. May have been back a long ways so it bears mentioning. Resource is level+ power+ constitution. Recharge is a good night's rest or a big big meal with lots of (2+ kg) meat.

I'll upload the changed book 2 exalt pages late tonight. Will also do a couple pages from the space section, would like to know if they make sense to people who aren't me. Probably won't get to change the d-blood asset page until the weekend, then I may merge warp & void if space requires it.

Edit: found a way to start a character with 2 stats at 6. Not a problem. Also has 4-5 stats at 1 plus other issues.

[Telok]

book 2 first draft (https://drive.google.com/file/d/19eRtaAgu5ofehxYzLjng2PkOJIIFKC-h/view?usp=sharing)

Edit: OK, dealt with family. File size is 26 mb, index not done, a couple "p.xx" placeholders, haven't done appendices yet. Still in easy-to-change format, haven't done any file optimization yet.

Have a "ultimate bigness chart" that has how to calculate size & length to and past 100. Also figured builds that technically can inflict hull damage on starships with personal scale weapons (mp lascannon, heavy bolter, grimscythe, probably power fist). Need to add that the "armor" of the ships is more like cover and not bypassed by magic... which means that it might not be possible to damage a starship hull with magic.

Edit edit: Already found 40 things to fix in first 85 pages.

[Telok]

Latest book 1, this should be the last version.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M30Mk-DCE0Muxu6d86oB_hv8S0wXnWfA/view?usp=drivesdk

Last version of the vehicle builder page
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M8-TWPeFVXJjGuYNprXQSV4pUopZOdY1/view?usp=drivesdk

I'm into converting the appendices from text files into book pages. After that it's updating the index, searching for any missing page references, attaching the die roller pages, bookmarking, hyperlinking.

Question: I have a spaceship deck plan, took a WWII battleship plan and modified it. Include?

[lightningcat]

Is there any reason not to include it? Because the Revised Edition is your creation. Adding more ships is absolutely a good thing imho.

[Telok]

Is there any reason not to include it? Because the Revised Edition is your creation. Adding more ships is absolutely a good thing imho.

Well, I'd need to convert it from a spreadsheet image insert into something more widely useable. Its in a spreadsheet because that has good multipage printing options. Maybe I'll attach it as a free image, like the vehicle a starship builders are attached.

Up to page 191 of the book. Did magic & tracking, still in vehicle appendix. Need to find a fun Car Wars pic or motivator having to do with ammo for the current page. Next will be the ultra-bigness chart and shooting spaceships with vehicle weapons, then zero-g combat, then the spaceship appendix. Then recompile the book, search for common typos & missing page references, confirm page numbers, update the index page, etc., etc.

[Blueiji]

I read through the first couple pages of this thread today, was very entertained, and then decided to sneak a peek at the latest pages. Immensely excited to see that you’ve been compiling your suggested changes and house-rules into a revised version of the game. Thank you for your hard work, Telok.

Edit: What do the special symbols next to the text mean (i.e. the red exclamation points, the green checks, the blue question marks, and the yellow hazard signs)?

[Telok]

I read through the first couple pages of this thread today, was very entertained, and then decided to sneak a peek at the latest pages. Immensely excited to see that you’ve been compiling your suggested changes and house-rules into a revised version of the game. Thank you for your hard work, Telok.

Edit: What do the special symbols next to the text mean (i.e. the red exclamation points, the green checks, the blue question marks, and the yellow hazard signs)?

Comments, annotations. Reading the pdf with software with more options gives you more stuff. My base phone reader doesn't do links, the lightweight reader on my comp doesn't do annotations or forms, okular and adobe readers do those and the attached web page files.

[Telok]

Update time.

After three weeks of "why does the rest of the family live in a place where people die when the air conditioning breaks?" I'm back to a less insane geographic location and my computer. Managed to do a couple more pages, found more minor edits needed, wrote a but on the umbra, cleaned up the example characters, and got a Dr McNinja reference in. Plus we're doing a Godzilla movie night while we all wear matching dinosaur print underoos.

Umbra thing, critique?


Dat Umbra

There's no information on how to deal with the Umbra. It's just missing from the books. If you're unfamiliar with the games that the Umbra and Warp come from this can be really confusing. Even if you are familiar with those games the mash-up of the two concepts can be pretty iffy. Presented here is what we use in our game, feel free to ignore it.

The Umbra is sort of the space between the material world and the Warp. People (and things) get in and our of it through various means, powerful werewolves can step through a mirror, wraiths can just blip over, ghosts and daemons can sometimes slide through, some sorcerers have spells or rituals that may let them open a portal. The barrier or 'Veil' between the Umbra and material worlds can be 'thinner' or 'thicker', making passage back an forth easier or harder. This 'thickness' matches how close the warp is to the material world and how easy it is to use magic. This is the usual 'where Modrons are active it's harder to...' sorts of stuff.

People experience the Umbra differently. To some it's like an slightly out of focus photographic negative of the world, yet creatures and things that exist in the Umbra look normal. Others refer to it as washed out and gray or sepia toned. Others liken it to the material world being behind a thick fog where it takes active effort to perceive it, yet the things actually in the Umbra are clear and colorful. Certain people perceive it as a dim and shadowy place only partly reminiscent of the material world, where the native horrors lurk in the darkness. People in the Umbra together may not agree on the exact visual effects, but they do agree on things that are there.

While the topography of the Umbra roughly matches that of the material world, anything that isn't effectively permanently in place doesn't really exist except as a sort of almost-translucent/transparent version of itself. This means that the ground, large plants (mostly trees), and permanent buildings are still pretty sturdy. But things like people, doors, shrubs, and water isn't solid and may not even be visible at all. Pro-tip: Don't pop out of the Umbra at the bottom of the ocean unless you're prepared for it. Places of great natural forces tend to be more present and real in the Umbra. Volcanoes, vortexes, and waterfalls often seem nearly normal except for some larger than normal elementals hanging around.

Magic is visible to normal vision as neon glowing geometric forms, flashing twisting ribbons, and strings or clouds of sparkles. Generally any of the various special effects that you see in movies to tell you that magic is happening. It's also tangible and magical wards created in the material world can function as doors and walls. You can check Appendix D on page 374 of Book 1 for some optional rules about wards. If someone tries to mess with a spell or ward in the Umbra it has a barrier rating equal to it's Focus Power test and they just need to damage it enough to break it down below the point where the spell would have been successfully cast. Of course it can't be quite that simple, no. Pretty much any ranged attack or weapon will just pass through the spell or ward without doing anything. You need to go up and rip it apart with your bare hands, an artifact melee weapon, or another spell. You'll also want to watch out for when it destructively fails. Once the spell or ward is reduced past where it would have been successfully cast it sort of magically explodes. The radius is 1/5th the original Focus Power test in meters and it does magic damage equal to whatever Focus Power result it would have after you broke it. That's magic damage too, which means that you need Aura because Armor won't help. In the material world there will generally be a popping fizzing sound and a sudden glow that fades away when it happens, in addition to the normal stuff like your magic flying house crashing to the ground. Example: Someone cast a TN 15 Invisible Servant spell with a Focus Power result of 17 that you, in the Umbra, want to wreck. Walk up, punch it for more than 17 damage, it's Focus Power result is now at 16. Do it twice more and the Focus Power result drops to 14, causing the spell to fail. In the material worlds the Invisible Servant pops and drops whatever it was holding. In the Umbra there's a 17/5 = 3.4 = 3m magic blast that does 14 damage.

The Umbra also has an additional dimension, leading deeper towards the Warp. It's generally described as any of: glowing paths, extra solid clumps of shadow, creepy stationary patches of fog, holes in reality, and several other phenomena. Moving in this direction is harder than just your normal walking around. You'll make several (say 1d5+5) Level or Power stat checks (or perhaps whatever checks were called for by the means used to enter the Umbra in the first place) to keep moving, with each check taking you further away from the material world. The TNs are usually 10 plus the 2 for each step away from the material world. As you make the checks the material worlds will fade out (generally it's completely gone after the third check), to be replaced be a more alien landscape that shifts and changes every check and scene. The closer you get to the Warp the faster and more severe the shifts are. At two checks away from the Warp the scenery is affected by a Psychic Phenomena roll every few rounds (just the harmless visual effects mostly) that affects the entire scene. A one check away from the Warp make a Perils of the Warp check (if you use the included Warp roller put it up to +25, roll twice, and pick the weirder one) every 1d5 rounds and apply it to everything in the area. The next check will put you in the Warp proper. That's generally accepted to be a bad thing for most people. Getting back out to the material world requires the same checks to move in the other direction.

If you don't want to go all the way 'down' to the Warp there are other places you can sometimes get to. In theory the Webways (Book 1, p.308) can be accessed through the Umbra and thus the city of Commoragh. There's rumored to be a door to Sigil (Book 1, p.279) somewhere. Several places in the Abyss (Book 1, p.284) are absolutely reachable from the Umbra, particularly the realms of the Ruinous Powers. In theory that also means that some places in Celestia (Book 1, 320) could possibly be reachable. There are some "realms" where powerful groups or entities have shaped a bit of the Umbra to fit them, these are a bit easier to reach if you know about them. You can assume that it's a TN 20 Forbidden Lore test (and probably another few 'wander around' tests) to find places like the Cocaine Wizard Guild enclave, a path to the Abyss, a dragon realm that you've been invited to, or a werewolf cairn. The Webways and other places are all at least TN 25 or 30. Raises on the Forbidden Lore test should reduce the travel time or difficulty and simple failure just makes you a bit lost and adds +1d5 to the TN. Failing the test with checks indicates ending up at the wrong place before you realize it, finding a Warp storm, or encountering something that's hungry (or just in a really bad mood). If you have something that is connected to the place you get a free raise on all the tests to get there.

Building or shaping your own place in the Umbra involves getting into the middle area and doing lots of difficult rituals, often for a long time. People who participate in a ritual to form or maintain and Umbral realm get a free raise on tests to find that place again. Doing a few minimal rituals (they're still those hard TNs of 35 or so) and then bringing in your own building materials is doable, but it tends to attract wandering creatures for some reason. Electronics and small-scale simple chemical reactions work just fine, lasguns and revolvers and flamers are all happy things. However stuff like internal combustion engines, rocket thrusters, anti-grav, large motors, and nuclear power plants aren't happy customers in the Umbra. Only the smaller and simpler vehicles or machines can be relied on, except Syrnth magi-tech junk of course. Interestingly any vehicle with a Super Solenoid Engine (p.106) works just fine though, as long as the SSE is turned on.

Umbral critters (Book 1, Antagonists, p.335) include spirits, elementals, ghosts, daemons, wraiths, powerful spellcasters and werewolves, and the occasional dragon or aboleth. Plus daemons, of course. Those suckers keep trying to muscle through from the Warp and some of them inevitably succeed. There are no Modrons in the Umbra, their mere existence is antithetical to it. Places where Modrons are active look more monochrome, geometric, and are harder to move around in. The severity of the effect increases as more Modrons are present until all that exists is blank gray emptiness where all movement is impossible. Generic creatures (Book 1, p.345) native to the Umbra tend to be rather nasty, having DarkSight and one of or more of: Constitution + Willpower additional Armor and Aura, attacks that are toxic and tearing, acting like they have spells [TODO 2-20 table with book/page references] (Blink, Jaunt, Blur, Invisibility, Unluck, Stun, Awe, Energy Aura, Silence, Mirror Image, Draining Touch, Web, Shock & Awe, Confusion, Horrid Wilting, Avasculate, Blood Wind, Primal Power) using Level + Wisdom for the faux casting, Amorphous (Book 1, p.336, creature traits), Phasing, Regeneration, or Stuff of Nightmares. They're also completely immune to toxins and drugs of the material world except for Null and Spook (p.169-170). Elementals and spirits often come in clumps of 2-20 and may be larger and stronger than normal. The elementals may even be spontaneously generating in an area. Daemons are generally encountered one or two steps from the Warp, with only the rare greater daemon appearing further out. Here's a possible encounter table we pulled out of our ass.[TODO random encounter table]

------------------------------------
Umbral animalistic creatures

1 Amorphous
2 Regeneration = Constitution
3 Bonus AP & Aura = Con+Will
4 Attacks are Toxic & Tearing
5 Uses spell like abilities
6 Stuff of Nightmares
7 Phasing
8 roll 1d5 twice, rerolling doubles
9 roll 1d5 three times
10 roll twice, rerolling results of 8+ and rerolling doubles

Spell Like Abilities: Use Level+Wisdom for the Focus Power test or the listed roll. Ignore potential Perils of the Warp and the creatures are unable to push the casting rolls.

2 Avasculate (6k5)
3 Horrid Wilting (5k5)
4 Mirror Image (5k5)
5 Jaunt (5k5)
6 Silence (TN 20)
7 Draining Touch (TN 20)
8 Invisibility (TN 5)
9 Confusion (TN 20)
10 Blood Wind (TN 15)
11 Blur (TN 15)
12 Web (TN 15)
13 Shock & Awe (TN 15)
14 Blink (TN 20)
15 Stun (TN 20)
16 Energy Aura (5k5)
17 Primal power (5k5)
18 Awe (5k5)
19 Lightning Ring (5k5)
20 Unluck (6k5)

Random WTF Umbral Encounter

2 aboleth-mage with mind flayers
3 level 5 werewolf with followers
4 lich
5 greater daemon if near the warp, otherwise level 5 mage
6 aboleth-mage (add one of
7 pack of lesser daemons if near the warp, otherwise level 4 wraith
8 1d5 elementals
9 animalistic creature, 2 modifications
10 elemental
11 animalistic creature, 1 modification
12 lesser daemon if adjacent to the warp, otherwise level 2 wraith
13 ghost
14 pack of 1 mod animalistic creatures
15 big elemental
16 pack of 2 mod animalistic creatures
17 young dragon-mage
18 greater daemon
19 level 5 werewolf champion
20 dragon with followers


Edit: added Monty Python & Black Adder references. Added command skill & point blank gun kata to HWG class.

Edit edit: Sweet. Found function in Adobe Pro to replace only the text & images on a page, leaving links & comment intact. Now I have like 15-20 pages in book 1 to do fixes on.

[Telok]

Down to the last 4 pages. One of character stubs, three of the umbra stuff. Also, I need a Muppet pic to use in the character stub page. This is what happens you leave me alone like this.

[Endarire]

Well, boo!

(Here's the attention you implicitly wanted!)

[Telok]

Well, boo!

(Here's the attention you implicitly wanted!)

Heh. Sometimes I just have to make a noise to see if anyone is still listening.

DRAFT OF BOOK 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10TRhqGOZmJ5FIwemdB_H_adcp9FO2nfH/view?usp=sharing

No bookmarks, links, comments, optimization, etc., yet.

And just for making sure the current version of book 1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M30Mk-DCE0Muxu6d86oB_hv8S0wXnWfA/view?usp=sharing

Of course now that I've found how to replace just the text and images while leaving the links and comments I have to update a bunch of pages in book 1.... Looks like about 41 pages of fixing so far.

And then... Still not yet done since I'll need to make/remake/update the quick reference sheets before attaching those to the smaller PDF.

[Lord Raziere]

Looks pretty much the same but with more advice at the end as usual to me. probably better with the advice than without

I've been thinking to change my next attempt at tiefling/vampire to be a bard class track to emulate the vampire's ability to dominate people with magic. either that or a monk to make sure the Brawl is a focus for biting and draining people.

another character concept I've had for this game is Tau/promethean/operator, just snipe things from range and such.

a more meme-y idea I've had one that I also have for Black Crusade is for khornate berserker who says nothing but "Blood For the Blood God!" like Groot. the DtD version would be an Ork and a Chosen of Khorne and probably a berserker with at least one chain axe, though I'd prefer to be able to dual-wield chain axes for this character concept. the joke would be that they say nothing but that, but that people can understand what they mean by it or have a khornate translator from their background who follows them to speak with others.

things like that unfortunately the two attempts at a DtD game I've been in didn't last long so I'm not real hopeful about a third working.

[Cluedrew]

idea I've had one that I also have for Black Crusade is for khornate berserker who says nothing but "Blood For the Blood God!" like Groot.Is their "We are Groot" moment "Skulls for the Skull Thrown"?

Yeah, I'm still checking in on the thread out of curiosity, but I don't intend to ever use this system. Actually, to Telok, any lessons from this system that you think could be taken to other systems? One seems to be "don't worry about it, just have fun" or something like that.

[Telok]

Raz: Swordsman, first level of fighter track, and the Tactical Officer class both offer TWF. My preference would be to take Academy, complete Feral with WP:Basic, dip through TacOff for TWF & Extra study, then either go Chief Security officer for AP:Any or back to the barbarian track. I changed the barbarian track exit bonus to melee & primitive, making it apply to compound bows too and giving high Str characters a good ranged option.

The changes are mostly subtle except a couple exalts got near full rewrites (werewolf, dragon blooded), many classes changed, maybe 2/5 of the spells, lots in the sword schools, and gun katas got a full redo. Vehicles & spaceships got weapon & defense numbers rebalances, plus moving some stuff around. A big goal was that there isn't an obviously best way to do something and nobody was locked into or out of something. Like I had a spreadsheet of skills & classes I used to give every class noncombat stuff and try to get every skill into at least 4 classes.

Cul: Applicable to other games... book 1 a, e, d, f, i. Book 2 maybe the char-op advice bits and I'm adding an assumptions & communication appenid based on some of the current threads in the main forum.

Book 1... A: Perception rules. Not the numbers, but the general grist of it. Also, I did that in two weeks of spare time with a family, full job, & small child around. If you make a game and want perception stuff... get a 15 hour/week minimum wage intern from the local uni, someone who has taken a stats class. Show them existing perception systems, explain the problems, point them at the RL research, and give them a month.

E: Chases. I cribbed & took from the vehicle chases and a couple other sources. It tries to give players control over the chase with the open ended actions and choose-your-own-TN. Tries to put a time limit on it with the fatigue thing. Hopefully the only things to track for the dm are distances. I solo play tested a couple times to check and under my assumptions & style all the options worked.

D: mind control & illusion magic. They need to work, need to be valid choices or not exist. Theres no problems to solve with a great dm & fair-play players. Not everyone can do that 100% of the time. The mind control leverages this system (resolve, hero points, degrees of failure) to mechanize how far you can twist meanings to prevent ******* stuff. It goes both ways, for npcs & pcs, and tries to allow both twisting meaning & "the spell works as intended". The illusion stuff is just advice to try to not screw people over for wanting to try classic stuff that works in movies & books. Trying to avoid the crap that regularly appears about illusions in the d&d forums.

F: Enemies. Its about trying to judge a party combat & threat handling ability empirically instead of theoretically like WotC does. Theory based like cr & xp budgets succeed or fail based on how constrained the characters are, because they have to predict pc combat abilities. D&d 4e and pazio starfinder cr/budget stuff works because character ability is very well defined with strong limits. Not just by character building, but by system allowed actions. This game doesn't do that sort of limiting, stunting alone would break it and social combat is probably near insane to try threat mapping. So can't use any real 'cr' type system.

I: Dice. A probability section for those without good math intuition or skills. Also tries to set some baseline expectations on what to roll for & how good a "skilled" character is. Trying for better than "roll if you dont know & guess a dc". Also trying to give more options than one roll, group roll, x successes.

For the char-op stuff I'm trying to manage expectations, illustrate trade-offs, and demonstrate common pitfalls. Trying to show that dumping stats can endanger you, casting can be powerful & safe if you choose, its OK to start out strong, its OK to not be strong in combat because that can improve that fast, you can be social or mental competent & skilled while still being combat capable. Show that totally dumping defense for armor isn't good. Show that a generally competent character (4k3 in everything) is a good character.

[QuadraticGish]

I: Dice. A probability section for those without good math intuition or skills. Also tries to set some baseline expectations on what to roll for & how good a "skilled" character is. Trying for better than "roll if you dont know & guess a dc". Also trying to give more options than one roll, group roll, x successes.

For the char-op stuff I'm trying to manage expectations, illustrate trade-offs, and demonstrate common pitfalls. Trying to show that dumping stats can endanger you, casting can be powerful & safe if you choose, its OK to start out strong, its OK to not be strong in combat because that can improve that fast, you can be social or mental competent & skilled while still being combat capable. Show that totally dumping defense for armor isn't good. Show that a generally competent character (4k3 in everything) is a good character.

I think these in particular are significant because the book doesn't have guidance on how you can how effective you are and what are good break points to reach for a beginning character depending on the level of competency they want to reach for a particular aspect.

[Lord Raziere]

okay I've got the actual pdfs and looking at your comments, one specific one stands out with Shadow's Hand specifically mosquito's Bite, you said that its supposed to make someone keel over later and whatever happens when someone uses with a Tiger Claw and chainsword is up to the ST.

speaking as an anime fan, and an Iaijutsu fan: combine with Mastery (Sheathed Blade), flash step so that your suddenly past the enemy, sheathe the chainsword. declare that "you are already dead".

Watch as the person suddenly falls apart in half one minute later. as I like to say:
"If your foe doesn't fall apart into two pieces a week after you cut them, you have not mastered fantasy Hyper-Iaijutsu".

[Telok]

Watch as the person suddenly falls apart in half one minute later. as I like to say:
"If your foe doesn't fall apart into two pieces a week after you cut them, you have not mastered fantasy Hyper-Iaijutsu".

I'll put that in the comment.

Also, a bit of hilarity: "promethian druids are op" (not really).

It's undefined (will put a ? comment on it in the comment phase) how the wounds taken from Shield Other transfer. I lean towards "same as the shielded person would get", so 6 explode wounds to the head transfer exactly like that to the caster.

Background: followers/allies for repairs & combat recovery
Druid -> animal companion, take the critter option.
Heal magic -> Shield other (eventually want death ward, maybe atonement, cure med or heal, divine power)
All damage the pet takes goes to the promethian. Once out of hp it takes 5 crits to the body or head to KO the druid & stop the spell. Only 5 crits to the gizzards can kill a promethian. Only once the caster is out can you hurt the pet.

Additional fun, wraithbone promethians can spend resource to heal and arguable shold be able to heal with the cure spells.

Also works well with werewolves (regen & power stat 2 ability).

[Telok]

Ok, worked up a screed on game tone & expectations. Would appreciate a double check.

System and Gameplay Assumptions and Biases

Late in the process of this revision it has become clear, after certain discussions, that the may be some people-based problems that come up during play. Unfortunately for you we're rules-type people, not people-type people. That's why you're reading a rules revision and we're not out trying to get laid.

People have assumptions and biases, and so do game systems because they were written by people. When a person's assumptions and biases conflict with those that are written into the game system there can be problems. For example: a game says "everyone can climb" in one place, "roll a climbing test when success is uncertain and there is danger" in another place, and "the TNs are easy=10, normal=15, hard=20". That's fine until you face an overweight SM with a bad back who thinks that climbing a rope ladder is a "hard" task that's fraught with peril because when the SM falls off a ladder they get laid out with debilitating pain for a week. Suddenly the maximum level, athletics, and strength characters in that game find out that climbing a rope ladder has a 40% failure rate and results in 1d5 hours of being stunned. The writer of that system was assuming the characters were action heroes and wanted to say that you should only roll climbing tests during a cliff-face melee, tornadoes, or avalanches. But the writer says "everyone" and "danger", which tells the SM "average people" and means any sort of minor fall because that's all it takes to cripple the SM.

This being DUNGEONS THE DRAGONING we're being explicit that the characters of this game are on the 'action hero' end of the competency scale. You can take it that normal everyday activities, even when performed by below average people, do not require rolls... Mr. Normal 2-dots with no Drive skill can make their morning drive to work for ten years without any accidents. Even for someone with a severe phobia of spiders it takes a Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula <<PIC?>> suddenly dropping onto their head or a horse-sized arachnid running towards them at 30 KPH in order to provoke a TN 15 Fear(1) test.

Just because a character doesn't have 8k4 is something doesn't mean they shouldn't try. The common TNs are in the 10 to 20 range, anything over 20 is something that less than one in ten people can do. Trying to swing across a chasm on a rope while people are shooting at you? That's TN 10 or 15, and it would be TN 5 but for the people trying to blast you. That 8k4 is for world champion level stuff. Fly a fighter jet through a collapsing skyscraper without taking any damage? That's your TN 35 test that the 8k4 pilot has a 50% chance of making, and its doing 1 HP + 1 HP per check of damage to the jet that _might_ cause a test to avoid crashing. Its important that these "roll once to succeed or fail" type checks are because you only get one try at them. If a character get more than one try the only question is how long it takes to succeed and if they royally screw up before that.

A second assumption of this game is that the players have input. Real input into the setting and the scenes, not just "my character does X". This is explicitly done through the Backgrounds, group specific feats or assets like Peer or Hunted, and through the stunting system. Obviously the SM has the final say in it, but the Backgrounds and groups that the players want for their characters show interest in those aspects of the setting. This is good and should be encouraged. Only if it completely conflicts with what the SM has established should it be changed or denied. Someone wants to be working for a secret cabal vampire council that's the power behind the throne of all the vampire clans? Unless the SM has a really good reason that secret vampire councils will screw up the adventures then that's fine. Someone wants ComStar to have a bounty out for them but the SM has established that Dune space-guild type group of astropaths has a stranglehold on FTL communication? Maybe ComStar is their accounting firm with an army of bill collection mecha. Try to figure something out before denying anything. Maybe someone will have to change a name or a few details, but try to get to some form of "Yes". Everyone will be happier.

Another form of input the players have is through the stunting system. Remember Book 1, page 237? It's important. Two and three die stunts allow for scene editing by the players (not contradicting existing stuff, so on and so forth). We're being absolutely explicit about this: If there needs to be a chandelier to swing from or a convenient trash chute to dive into, then its there unless it blatantly contradicts the established scene. Really, people put chandeliers in the dumbest places. We know other games have hammered people out of stunts. Making two extra rolls to get a +1 on an attack and have the same effect a normal attack would have is crap, and there are games suggesting that. When someone stunts you (SM or players) can ask for a second roll if you really feel it's needed to vault over the daemon lord's head or topple the giant statue. But that roll shouldn't be too hard, and it gets the bonus stunting dice too (yes, the stunt dice apply to all the rolls of the stunt). The TN for an extra stunting roll is absolutely not to be over 25, and it will usually be 10 to 20. The other big thing about stunts is that the <strong>stunter gets to narrate the results</strong>. Did you fail massively? You, the stunter, get to choose the form and effects of your failure. It didn't have the effect you wanted, and it shouldn't have any beneficial side-effects, but you aren't doing a prat-fall unless you really want to.

Speaking of scenery, blow it up. Reinforced concrete, submarine pressure hatches, and 4cm thick iron plates are AP 16 cover. A strong guy with a power fist has a 60% chance of getting at least 6 points of damage past that, and a plasma grenade is almost assured to still give someone on the other side a nasty burn. A running firefight through a collapsing building or sinking ship is practically the definition of a a good action scene. Do it. Blowing up and abusing the scenery is a normal part of combat. Kicking over a brazier of coals onto some curtains isn't a stunt. A brazier is an unarmored inanimate object that isn't nailed down, the bloody thing will fall over if the character bumps it on accident. Picking it up and shoving someone's face in it isn't even a one die stunt. Picking up two braziers and whanging them on someone's head like big burning cymbals so that he's stunned and on fire... That is a stunt. This fits into another good piece of advice: "No empty rooms". An empty hanger is a bad set. Put in some scaffolding to the ceiling for repairs, a pile of toolboxes, a stack of tires, an oil slick, half an airplane, and of course you need some exploding barrels. You want combats where people stand around bopping each other with Nerf swords until one of them falls down? Go play a different game. In this game you bodily pick up your enemies and throw them into wood chippers. Well... maybe only the werewolves do that more than once. The rest of us have rocket launchers and power swords.

"But there's no rules fo-" Quit your bitching.

Not everything is covered by the combat actions list on page 242 of Book 1, the SMs have to wing it sometimes. They have to try to stay fair and awesome and keep things fun. That goes for the players too. The official word is that there's an "Other Actions" paragraph on page 249, even though it's a bit short on details. No RPG rule set can truly cover everything, that's part of why we have a SM. Use your best judgement, talk things out, ask what the purpose of something is, give honest answers. We're all here to have fun. If someone wants to do something that sounds stupid, ask why. There's probably a misunderstanding happening somewhere. If conflicts come up check if the players are OK with something working the same way for them that it works for the NPCs.

Go with that "pick someone up and throw them" thing, we guessed it was something to do as part of a grapple instead of hurting someone and would involve a Strength test. The procedure we came up with is to start a grapple and get to the point where you can hurt the other person, then instead of hurting them you use a Strength check to lift them up. We decided that ended the turn, meaning the victim has a chance to escape. Presuming that the victim fails to escape or win the next grapple, they get thrown the next turn, with another check to determine the distance. The TN of the Strength test was set at Size*5, with anything that counted as artificially increasing Resilience (machinator arrays and power armor) counting as another point of Size, and the distance on a success being the thrower's Strength in meters plus another meter per raise. Accurate throwing was just a regular thrown object Ballistics test with the damage set as the Size of the thrown person (+1 for power armor, etc.) plus the number of raises beyond what was needed to get them to the impact site as rolled dice, and half the rolled dice as kept dice. It turned out that a Strength 7 werewolf is pretty good at chucking halflings out windows.

Likewise, not everything a character can do is written on the character sheet. There is no "tell a joke" or "pick out nice clothes" entry on the sheet (the Perform skill is more for a whole stand-up comedy routine). You can roll Fellowship or something if you can't think of a joke and you're desperate, but if someone knows a joke you use that. The character sheet won't tell you you can swing on a chandelier, bribe a guard, light a fire with the Energy Ray spell, spike a vampire to the ceiling with a spear, punch an oncoming car so hard it stops, or ride a rocket into space by chaining yourself to the outside. Go. Try it. Play. Have fun.

These things run both ways. The SM can, and sometimes should, speak up with things like "I have an idea for this NPC and I think it's be cool if you guys talked to it" or "I worked hard on this dungeon and I'd be super happy if the session today could be about exploring it". Just as the players are here to have fun so is the StoryMaster. In the same way the players ask the SM questions like "Can I find a double barrel las cannon for sale?" the SM can ask things like "Who was the person your character hated most in her home town?" and "What was the sorcerer who taught you make like?". If the players are well an truly stuck or the SM is getting frustrated at the random flailing of characters try this:

Once a session you ask for a Level+Power stat roll (anyone can ask, even the SM, everyone gets one ask a session), with a TN of [2, 10, 20, 30, 40] based on the character's Level. There's no penalty for failing and the person who called for the roll gets to ask one question, plus another per two raises from this list* (answer truthfully):
"What can I use to _____?"
"What is the biggest threat?"
"What is the greatest danger?"
"Who here is most vulnerable and how?"
"How can we best end this quickly?"

*(Shamelessly cribbed from Masks: A new Generation)

One more thing; those minions. Carving a bloody swath through an army of mooks with a chain-axe and power sword is normal. It's not the only solution, but it's a nice one.

Replaced a bunch of pages in book 1, up to p.120. Made changes to a bunch more, still more changes to make. Going to be about 60 in total I think. Many are just spelling and table row background fixes.

Built a webpage version of the weapon builder. Buggy, limited, ugly. Using it to check that all main book weapons are sort of kind of creatable at about the right rarity. Resulted in dropping revolvers to very common & upping shield damage to 0k2.

Might get to work more on it tonight.

[Telok]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uXjJWszMzpFXcDxlezT1jXy9BaLrrMWb/view?usp=sharing

Current version of book 2.

TODO: Iterate verify of weapon building against existing weapons again. Replace 40 pages in book 1 & fix/check placement of hyperlinks. Build cheat sheet PDF pages to attach to Book 2 end. See about compression of 2.8 gb jpeg spelljammer blueprint.

LATER: Hyperlink, bookmarks, & comments into book 2.

[Telok]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N09sZ19gQkPC78kPgT3jzdCmHMePKo9K/view?usp=drivesdk

Latest version of book 2. Luckily I noticed a page was missing.

Three last pages to replace in book 1, then recheck the other 300 pages of links for correct placement.

UPDATE: Possibly last version of book 2. Willing to replace last page or add two pages just before the last advice, if anyone has something specific they want.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vmw4YR8jy4-EOmIv4DgbdNadtA6r9moz/view?usp=sharing

[(INSERT NAME)]

Holy crap! Ive known about this system for years and haven't been able to find ANYONE who was remotely aware of it. When I first found this system, I acted as a DM and fell in love with the system but ive always wanted to be a player.

Is this just a thread about your additions or is there anything (here or elsewhere) that has groups playing this?

[Telok]

Holy crap! Ive known about this system for years and haven't been able to find ANYONE who was remotely aware of it. When I first found this system, I acted as a DM and fell in love with the system but ive always wanted to be a player.

Is this just a thread about your additions or is there anything (here or elsewhere) that has groups playing this?
Well the White Wizards Workshop forum has occasional activity. When this whole think is done I'll make an account there and drop it on them.

I ran it for a year and I plan on running it again. Once the revision is complete (and the plague is less of an issue) I'm going to try to snag some new players and a couple old ones. I plan on running it for another 6months to a year again before trying to convince someone else to run it so that I can play. If you're in commuting range of Anchorage Alaska* we usually run a Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon weekly for about 4-6 hours. That's my big plan, DM it until I can find/train someone to DM it so that I can play.

In related news I'm recuperating from a minor surgery and have pretty free use of a laptop this weekend without small child interference. I may be able to get some of the supplementary materials for book 2 in order.

* In Alaska there are some who think the 8 hour drive to/from Fairbanks-Anchorage is an acceptable commute if there's a couch to crash on.

[(INSERT NAME)]

Well the White Wizards Workshop forum has occasional activity. When this whole think is done I'll make an account there and drop it on them.

I ran it for a year and I plan on running it again. Once the revision is complete (and the plague is less of an issue) I'm going to try to snag some new players and a couple old ones. I plan on running it for another 6months to a year again before trying to convince someone else to run it so that I can play. If you're in commuting range of Anchorage Alaska* we usually run a Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon weekly for about 4-6 hours. That's my big plan, DM it until I can find/train someone to DM it so that I can play.

In related news I'm recuperating from a minor surgery and have pretty free use of a laptop this weekend without small child interference. I may be able to get some of the supplementary materials for book 2 in order.

* In Alaska there are some who think the 8 hour drive to/from Fairbanks-Anchorage is an acceptable commute if there's a couch to crash on.

Unfortunately, I do not live in the US so my commute would probably be a bit longer then that. lol
Hoping there was maybe a dedicated discord group or something. Roll20 has a functioning DtD sheet and have tried looking for groups both on that and the White Wizards Workshop to no avail.
Guess all I can do is try again.

thanks for the response though and good luck with trying to get a DM-Padawan :)

[ahyangyi]

I'm wondering where do the mechanics of the Sword Schools come from.

No, I don't mean the Book of Nine Swords. That's where the themes come from.

But Bo9S does not come with the move customization thing. Where you stack modifications to one of the many basic actions available.

Are these LawfulNice's original ideas? Are they influenced by Exalted? Are there game systems with similar promises?

[Lord Raziere]

I'm wondering where do the mechanics of the Sword Schools come from.

No, I don't mean the Book of Nine Swords. That's where the themes come from.

But Bo9S does not come with the move customization thing. Where you stack modifications to one of the many basic actions available.

Are these LawfulNice's original ideas? Are they influenced by Exalted? Are there game systems with similar promises?

Not Exalted no. Exalted's martial arts are pretty set in stone in their moves. You learn Single Point Shining into the Void Style (aka Iaijutsu for Solar Exalted), your pretty much mechanically the same as anyone else who learns it, the hope is as an Exalted your one of the few who has mastered it to that level.

the only game system I know of where you can customize your martial arts is Anima Beyond Fantasy, but lawfulnice makes no reference to it, probably for the best because ABF isn't exactly open to be used for jokey tones like this. but I don't doubt that there might be other systems that do allow for it.

at the same time it wouldn't surprise me if lawfulnice didn't know about any of them and came up with it on his own. most ttrpgs either aren't well known enough to have the jokes and memes built up around them or don't have much potential to be joked about.

[Telok]

I think maybe the closest I've personally seen is some of the combat move options in the HERO system. I'd have to dig in my books & files (ergo not happining tonight because family) but I recall combat levels & optional move combos that could sort of maybe look like the basic adv/disad stuff. The "make a skill roll to activate your power" is there too, though not usually applied to martial arts moves.

Not talking about buying auto-fire on your punches for speedster characters. But there was an actual sheet of assorted moves (throws, trips, jump kicks, move by, move through, haymaker, etc.) anyone could use in combat and buying combat levels could improve how you did them. Point buy being point buy I suppose you could use them as the basis of actual powers.

[Telok]

I think book 1 is finally complete.

Raz, your quote is in. There were a couple last adjustments to two or three sword school moves ("Earth Shattering Kaboom" is the only one I remember offhand).

[removed link

Book 2 text is... I think its basically done. I'l give it a bit while I build supporting documents to append to the book. Cheat sheets & DM screen type stuff.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZYUhWBuqP-b6xmnyhOpVx-gv_ipEhKVk/view?usp=drivesdk

Edit: just found and fixed a broken comment image. Will re-up book 1 later tonight.

Edit 2: re-up. New link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PYv-pSi-KmBB4c9_7Y8t245xu4-dhrI1/view?usp=drivesdk

[Telok]

Update: current book 1 link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PpxeIu31CTKpii1kM_xri6BqUAlec4_i/view?usp=drivesdk

Current book 2 link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pdt7C5hqc0XOmC9m5YIEsgVvsv6mjK_H/view?usp=drivesdk

Info: Book 2 - added the probability chart & cheat sheets, added bookmarks, began (barely) adding comments. To-do: comments, links, attach additional files like vehicle builder & such.

Book 1 - fixed a few comments, removed a couple that no longer applied, fixed a mispelling in the bookmarks.

I've compiled a rough list of all the pre-game decision points in book 1. These are all the choices for optional rules, what counts for what, if plastic man armor counts as close enough to 'metal' for artifacts, and stuff like how the dm wants to deal with interstellar communications. As I fill in commentary on book 2 I'll add those questions to the list.

[Telok]

Ok, fixed a last couple bits in book 1, comments and pdf metadata mostly. Fixed a couple more minor things in book 2, formatting, spelling, a math error, and comments.

I'm just about to start putting links in book 2. One more attachment to do, the big list of optional rules and gray areas in tge rules that the DM needs to consider. Here's the current text in case anyone wants to try and spot something
This document lists a bunch of decision points that the SM may want to decide on before starting the game. Players may also want to review it for possible questions that apply to their characters, in order to clear up any potential misunderstandings before beginning to play.

BOOK 1
p10 Starting ability scores: Should dots be allocated in three columns, or can you use both columns and rows? (Both allows for more min/max-ing.)
p12 Starting Backgrounds: Inheritance, Wealth, and Artifacts are capped at 5 during character creation. What about other backgrounds? (The SM may have to decide what Contacts 10 looks like.)
p13 Starting Experience Point buy: What is the order of operations for spending the XP? You can use Daemonhost and Atlantean to get an attribute or skill to 6 using the Veteran O' the Wheel asset after spending some XP.
p14 Hit Points & Resilience: Do you want to use the standard model or a simplified one where everything is assumed to have a 5 Resilience and you multiply HP by 5? (This works by taking Old HP x5 = New HP then adding Level x Size to New HP. Every time the character goes up a Level they add their Size to the New HP again. Power armors have +5 AP, the machinator array adds +5 New HP, things that do automatic wounds do 5 damage per wound, and things that treat targets like they had less Resilience add +5 damage per level of reduction.)
p21 Skills: Which skills & rolls are advanced, and which shouldn't be penalized for not having any dots? (Untrained basic skills are rolled at attribute - 1, meaning untrained perception for a Wisdom 2 character is 1k1.)
p22 Acrobatics skill: As an advanced skill should this prohibit dodging by untrained characters? (We consider dodges to be a Dexterity save that adds Acrobatics as rolled dice.)
p22 Arcana skill: This is used in magic saves, yet it is an advanced skill. Should characters without a dot in arcana be unable to make saves vs. magic? (We don't think so.)
p23 Common Lore skill: Should this be a basic skill?
p24 Medicae skill: Basic first aid and stopping bleeding are basic applications, but as an advanced skill only trained people can attempt them. Should there be basic applications? (We think that stopping bleeding should be a basic skill type of application of Medicae.)
p25 Perception skill: By the rules untrained people have a -1 die penalty to perception checks.
p30 Warp Miasma Dark Eldarin species power: What is the range & targeting form of this power?
p32 Dragon breath Dragonborn species power: As with Flamers should this use Ballistics or Dexterity for determining the save TN?
p54 Exaltation Resource Points: Should using a RP default to a half action or a free action? Some abilities are useless if they take a half action.
p54 Exaltation tells: You should decide how much emphasis to put on the tells.
p65 Daemonhost exaltation Feeding ability: Followers & healing magic may make the SM feel that it is too easy to stay topped up on Resource Points.
p65 Daemonhost exaltation Black Miracle ability: The details of the ritual are completely undefined. Possibly see the daemon summoning appendix for ideas?
p72 Promethian exaltation Living Construct ability: Does Fatigue equal Resource Point usage? Yyes in some feats, but you may want to decide in general?
p72 Promethian exaltation Unquiet ability: Should it apply to everything? Tech-priests, heavy cybernetic augmentation npcs, and the intimidation skill?
p73 Promethian exaltation Superlative Construction ability: You have to decide on how to handle crit counting and things like its interaction with the True Grit feat.
p73 Promethian exaltation Generation attribute: The SM has to decide how much 'go home to upgrade' is required, or is it optional?
p77 Vampire exaltation Dread power: Should it upgrade or scale with Potency?
p77 Vampire exaltation Domination power: Is it a spell or like-a-spell? This matters for Perils of the Warp checks.
p80 Werewolf exaltation War-Form ability: How do you want to deal with the bonus Hit Points form the increased Constitution? Do you want werewolves to take extra damage when their constitution returns to normal?
p80 Werewolf exaltation Fast Healing ability: How do you want to do silver/magic damage tracking and criticals?
p120 Exalted assets: Can they be acquired after character creation? with a quest? On a Power stat increase?
p122 Divine Ministration feat: Do you want to restrict this to once a day if there are multiple human paragon exalts in the party?
p124 Frenzy feat Constitution hit point modification: Should the character take additional damage when the bonus constitution wears off or not?
p126 Jaded feat: What counts as supernatural fear effects?
p131 Tau Farsighted asset: Do you want to add a bonus in games without much social combat?
p131 Human Perseverance asset: Attacks, parries and dodges are not normally considered opposed rolls but the SM could change that.
p131 Ork I'm Da Boss asset: Is this bonus added to the total (+5), or added as rolled dice (+5k0)?
p134 Magic Resistance asset: Does the SM want to allow this to be taken more than once?
p134 Spirit Mentor asset: How powerful should the mentor be, how often should they be available, and who should decide that?
p136 Chosen asset Mark of Cuthbert: What things are crimes and does jurisdiction or knowledge of criminal acts matter?
p137 Chosen asset Mark of Nurgle: This has no effect at Faith 1, when it is most likely to be taken. Should the SM allow to apply at the start?
p139 Paragon assets: Can these be taken after character creation or not?
p148 Magic fluff: Navigators, astropaths, apostates, & untouchables. The SM has to decide if the fluff matters and should and how it be implemented.
p149 Focus Power tests: Should natural abilities that don't trigger Perils of the Warp be able to be fettered or pushed?
p150 Focus Power tests: How much should be added to the Perils of the Warp rolls per level/die based on which tables you're using? (The automatic warp effects roller is intended to be used as follows: tested keeping exploded dice = +5 per kept exploded die after the first, apostate keeping exploded dice = +10 per any exploded die, tested pushing = +5 per additional die and +5 per kept exploded die, apostate pushing = +10 per additional die and +10 per any exploded die. Fettering is always completely safe.)
p150 Focus Power tests: What order of operations do you want when there are multiple effects that modify the number of dice being rolled? (We suggest adding any dice for Pushing be done first, the halving of dice for Fettering be done last, any anything else in any order. E.g. 7k4 +3k0 for Atlantean -2k0 for Spell Might = 8k4 then fettered to 4k4.)
p150 Magic spells & line of sight: Is line of sight going to be different than line of effect? Can you cast through a window or into darkness? (For Magic Missile and Charm Person you should probably have both sight and a clear path. But for Fog Cloud or Energy Ray you should probably be able to just unambiguously state the location of the effect as long as there is a clear path.)
p151 Magic spells & ranged touch: Level+Ballistics or Ballistics+Dexterity or Level+Dexterity or Arcana+Dexterity? (We allow the caster to choose between Level+Ballistics and Level+Dexterity.)
p154 Magic spells & touch: Level+Brawling or Level+Dexterity or Brawling+Dexterity? (We allow Level+Brawling or Level+Dexterity.)
p154 Magic spells & opportunity attacks: Should reaction dodge & parry type spells provoke opportunity attacks?
p156 Abjuration spell, Shield: Should reaction dodge & parry type spells provoke opportunity attacks?
p156 Abjuration Spell, Dispel: What are the TNs for dispelling ongoing effects and other stuff?
p158 Conjuration spell, Call Item: Just how big a thing can you summon?
p158 Conjuration spell, Lesser Servant: The form and limitations of the summons needs to be decided.
p159 Conjuration spell, Greater Servant: The form and limitations of the summons needs to be decided.
p160 Divination spell, Foresee: Should reaction dodge & parry type spells provoke opportunity attacks?
p161 Divination spell, Mind Net: This is maybe a bit weak for 4th level spell, but should you use the optional suggestions to power it up?
p170 Necromancy spell, Draining Touch: Should it not provoke opportunity attacks? Last until the end of your next turn or attack? Or do you have to suck up an opportunity attack to use it?
p171 Necromancy spell, Zombie Plague: How does this interact with advanced undead creation? At what point do you form minion squads? How good is the casters control?
p173 Transmutation spell, Transformation: Should you allow alternate forms? One per dot on Transmutation or one per level?
p173 Transmutation spell, Dragon Form: Does the SM require casters to prepare their transformed stats ahead of time? Is dragon sized equipment available?
p177 Sword Schools & free style points: Can you stockpile the free style points or do you have to spend them immediately?
p178 Desert Wind, Leaping Flame: Can you split up the distance into before & after chunks? Do you have to go the whole distance? Do you have to know where you're going?
p179 Devoted Spirit, Revitalizing Strike: If you create an Aid Another healing strike can it heal you if you're adjacent to the attacker who uses the strike?
p182 Setting Sun & unarmed attacks: Do natural weapons count as unarmed attacks? What about brawling weapons? Can you do Knockout Blow with a Power Fist?
p183 Shadow Hand & ready actions: Can you 're-ready' an already drawn weapon?
p183 Shadow Hand, Mosquito Bite: What happens when you use this with a chain axe?
p184 Stone Dragon, Weight of the Mountain: Can fatigue immune people use this restriction? Should it cost them a resource point?
p184 Stone Dragon, Felling Giants Blow: If your games uses a no-Resilience optional rule how does this work?
p185 Tiger Claw, Brutal Reserve: What should this do when you can already take reactions after an all-out attack? Should it just negate any penalties if you can already use reactions?
p185 Tiger Claw, Evisceration: If your games uses a no-Resilience optional rule how does this work?
p187 Backgrounds, Allies: Do they gain XP? How many are allowed at character creation? Who builds and runs them?
p188 Backgrounds, Backing: The SM should decide on amount of responsibility and power. Can this compete with or replace wealth?
p189 Backgrounds, Inheritance: Does this stuff have plot protection like artifacts?
p189 Backgrounds, Holdings: You have to decide what is appropriate for your game.
p190 Backgrounds, Mentor: You need to decide on how to use it, and who sets up or build the mentor.
p191 Devotion: What role does alignment play in your game?
p192 Raising Devotion: This may cost too much for non-chosen and non-priest characters to bother with raising it.
p193 Degenerations, witch-mark: Does the tiefling werewolf with mutations really care? Should the be a "baby's-first-degeneration"?
p193 Degenerations, ashen taste: What about food and fatigue immune exalts?
p193 Degenerations, blackouts: How often? How long? What triggers them?
p193 Degenerations, blighted mind: What exactly are derangements? What do they do? Should you use Appendix C (p.367)?
p203 Equipment, defensive weapon attribute: Are shields armor or weapons?
p203 Equipment, flame weapon attribute: What TN determination do you want to use, Dexterity or Ballistics or let the player choose?
p215 Equipment, armor Static Defense penalty: Do you want to use simplified armor penalties (Heavy = 3, Extreme = 4, Power = 7)?
p219 Equipment, bionic locomotion: Do you get one leg or two? (One leg gets really awkward when you have two different ones.)
p225 Artifact weapons and armors: Which armors are "metal" for these purposes? Are shields armor or weapons?
p235 Rolling more than 10 dice: Should you require conversion or not? (By default every 2 rolled dice over 10 become an additional kept die, and every additional kept die over 10 becomes +5. Statistically speaking, converting or not doesn't make a big difference in the result totals.)
p236 Characteristic tests: Is dodge a Dexterity characteristic test that adds Acrobatics, or a skill test you can't make without Acrobatics?
p237 Stunts: Should you allow hit location rolls before starting the descriptions? Perhaps allow free called shots in 2 & 3 die stunts?
p241 Surprise: How to deal with characters that can't be surprised when they are 'acting' before things that would trigger a combat? (Our best results came from describing the scene and telling the player that the character's Danger Sense activated and asking them what they want to do. Perhaps allow a quick Perception or Scrutiny test. Then check for who goes first.)
p245 Combat Actions, Delay: Is this a Half Action being saved for later, or a Half Action to save your other Half Action for later?
p245 Combat Actions, Disarm: What about Brawling disarms? Allow, disallow, only on a stunt?
p245 Combat Actions, Feint: What about brawling feints? (We thing they work just fine.)
p245 Combat Actions, Fight Defensively: Is this Weaponry only or also Brawling and Ballistics? (We found its OK to apply to all.)
p253 Combat Situations, Cover: How do you want to deal with massive over penetration or area effects? Should cover degrade faster with bigger boom-boom?
p254 Combat Situations, Weapon Jams: When to jam a weapon? When they roll more 1s than Ballistics skill? More 1s than their Level? When they're forced to keep 1s? When do full auto burst attacks jam? On the first round, last round, or in between?
p255 Hit Points: Do you want to use Resilience or do a 'all HP x5' sort of thing and drop Resilience?
p256 Critical Damage: Do you want to use an alternate to the charts? What are the interactions with variants on not using Resilience?
p261 Amputation: The chance for an amputation to cause disease is in the rules, but exalts are immune to "most mortal diseases". Do you want to use this?
p267 Social Combat: The default loss of Resolve is a maximum of 2 Resolve per scene (before stunts). You may consider making it equal to the Fellowship of attacker.
p270 Mental Trauma: When should you roll this?
p334 XP: You may want to reconsider devotion costs if they seem too high.
p337 Enemies, phasing ability: This is not a great implementation of 'immaterial' critters like ghosts. You may also want to consider what is a "magic weapon" and which magic/spells works on them?
p337 Enemies, undead ability: This is possibly an imperfect implementation of being "undead", consider tweaking it for specific undead creatures?
p343 Enemies, Dark Mechanus: This is a weird and slightly over-leveled faux-Promethian enemy. Consider changing or giving it the full Promethian exaltation powers?
p348 Enemies, Mind Flayers: Is their casting innate and not able to be pushed or cause Perils of the Warp? Or same magic as everyone, or just some of it?
p349 Enemies, Aboleths: Is their casting innate and not able to be pushed or cause Perils of the Warp? Or same magic as everyone, or just some of it?
p350 Enemies, Ghosts: These are not a great opponent, do they need to be upgraded? Is their casting innate and not able to be pushed or cause Perils of the Warp? Or same magic as everyone, or just some of it?
p359 Enemies, minions: They're missing social defense, what if they're armor, initiative, and how do some weapons work? (We run their mental defense as the same as their Static Defense. If they wear heavy or better armor that AP replaces the +5 raise number (e.g.: minions in AP 8 armor take -4 defense and each raise on the to-hit roll is 8 instead of 5). Their initiative bonus is equal to their threat rating. And we just don't let them use flamers and grenades, they just explode the minions.)
p362 Stealth: Should stealth tests be opposed by perception or used more like parry & dodge where they add (half?) to a general perception TN?
p368 Mental Disorders: These are strong a potentially quite debilitating. The SM should decide on what triggers them and how often they come up.
p382 Astropaths & navigators: You need to decide on how you want the setting to work. Like 'Dune'? BattleTech ComStar? WH40k? Star Wars HoloNet?
p384 Character Wealth: Do you want to use alternate looting & money rules or not?
p388 Character Contacts & Allies: How much work and detail do you need? How much say does the player have?

book 2
p6 Species, Thri-Kreen: Is the "don't sleep" thing fluff or rules? Is there any interaction with Night Terrors hindrance?
p8 Species, Kenku: What is the interaction between wing aided movement and immobilize & snare effects?
p12 Species, Dryad racial power: Do you want to choose one or allow the player to choose? Should it apply to all dryads or be an individual thing?
p16 Wraith exaltation Ghost Dice ability: Which version do you want to use?
p16 Wraith exaltation Dematerialize ability: How do you want to do the phasing trait? (Book 1, p337)
p17 Wraith exaltation Poltergeist power: There are no attacks, but what about shoving and grabbing?
p17 Wraith exaltation Shroud power: Is this equal to maximum or current Resolve?
p19 Dragon-blooded exaltation dragon Heart power: Is the flame TN based on Dexterity or Ballistics?
p59 Elemental Shot feats: Does the GunMage class extra shots per day feature apply to one feat or all of the feats? Another way to phrase this is are the extra uses tied to a particular feat, or are they a "pool" of uses?
p61 Lead Fingers feat: The SM should decide how much this feat is likely to damage the equipment.
p63 Pinball Wizard feat: The SM should decide how much this feat is likely to damage the equipment and what the limits are.
p65 Unarmed Master & other unarmed combat feats: Should the unarmed feats stack with the Weapon Focus and Weapons Specialization feats? (We found its OK if they do, brawling damage tends to be a little low.)
p65 Wholeness of Body feat: Does the AP count as armor for things like the paladin classes +1 AP feature? (We can't find any problems with that.)
p65 Wildshape feat: Are bionics melded and useless equipment, or do they carry over like werewolves bionics do? (We like them to carry over. Its simpler.)
p68 Dryad Matron asset: How does this work if the SM chooses the alternate racial power for dryads?
p70 Dragon-blooded exaltation Blood of Io asset: The SM needs to determine what sort of wealth test it is and how many "handful"s they can regularly carry around.
p70 Dragon-blooded exaltation Blood of Tiamat asset: Should it also swap the attribute bonus around? (We said no, just because all the rewriting stats on character sheets tended to introduce errors.)
p74 Abjuration spell, Ruby Ray: Does the self only version work on area spells? Are they whole or partially reflected?
p77 Enchantment spell, Enchant an Item: Should the duration of the enchantment be extended to match traditional narratives?
p78 Evocation spell, Battering Ram: Can you push them up or down?
p81 Necromancy spell, Avasculate: Does a Promethian's Pyros reactor count as a heart? Do modrons have hearts?
p81 Necromancy spell, Create Greater Undead: How do head shots affect the focus gemstone? How expensive is the stone? (Blizzard stone, obsidian, & onyx are black semi-precious stones where human brain sized rough stones ran about $50 to $100 USD when we checked.)
p86 Crisis Zone, Razing Storm: How does the trick shot ability interact with the Storm property (Book 2, p.164)?
p88 Point Blank: Does the SM want to let Guardsman class track classes take Point Blank with or instead of Iron Heart? (We have no problems with this.)
p88 Point Blank, Bullet Dance Technique: When should the movement occur? Immediately or on the target's turn? Who chooses the direction?
p93 Vehicle rules, Punch It: Can this stand in for a Maintain Control action or is it a separate action? (We find it works better as a separate action.)
p98 Vehicle building, Drive Trains: Do you want to allow vehicles without drives? (Its fine by us.)
p100 Vehicle building, Berserker control system: Do you want to use the optional rule about perception filters? How does it tell friend from foe?
p100 Vehicle building, Basic Equipment: Should this be included with or separate from the rest of the controls for microinzing and macronizing?
p100 Vehicle building, Copilot seat: How locked in are which things a copilot can control? Can they hot swap or is it fixed at design time?
p101 Vehicle building, Remote controls: What is the size of controllers and the security of the link?
p103 Vehicle building, Features: You should decide on some limits. Are personal weapon mounts for passengers a feature or standard in the mount? (By default only a pilot or copilot can control them.)
p111 Vehicle rules, Missile blasts: Should anti-vehicle missiles have a blast radius when used against people? (We like SRMs = 2m, LRMs = 4m, A4s = 6m, when used on people if they don't already have a blast radius.)
p111 Vehicle rules, Vehicle CQC weapons: What to do when someone puts one on a vehicle without arms? Ban in, use it for ramming only, or use Acceleration for Strength?
p132 Spelljammers, damage and Multipahsic shields: You need to decide how to run them. Should individual layers go down or do they only go down when all the layers are down? Does only one layer regenerate, or do all the layers regenerate? (The equations and tests for balancing the different shields worked on the assumption that all the layers have to be down at once for the shields to stay down, and that all layers had their own regeneration & disruption separate from the other layers.)
p165 Weapons, Indirect weapons: Should the grenade launchers from Book 1 officially have this trait as well?
p165 Weapons, Tandem Charge: Is it too strong an effect against people? Considering that, by default, its only available for vehicle weapons it doesn't seem too harsh.


And a last call for an image. I'm quite willing to replace the "so long and thanks for all the fish" image, in part or in whole, with a different image or some insane ranting from one of you... loyal readers...

Edit: and for no good reason i now have a corgi doc octopus build using a halfling werewolf tech priest

Edit edit: the list is 9 pages, filled with my answers is 12. Think I'll go with attaching the no answers verson and do a little formatting to scrunch it down further.

[ahyangyi]

I'm wondering where do the mechanics of the Sword Schools come from.

No, I don't mean the Book of Nine Swords. That's where the themes come from.

But Bo9S does not come with the move customization thing. Where you stack modifications to one of the many basic actions available.

Are these LawfulNice's original ideas? Are they influenced by Exalted? Are there game systems with similar promises?

Now I feel that Mutants & Masterminds (https://www.d20herosrd.com/6-powers/modifiers/) is at least one of the inspiration source for the Sword Schools in DtD.

[Telok]

Book 2 linked. Need to fix three pages text & replace additional vehicle attachment.

No suggestions for the last page? I can drop the pic, move the last text page over and insert a 1 page appendixbegore it too. Anyone want put something in?

[Telok]

Done. Hard to believe its been a year and a half of lunch breaks, nights after everyone else went to bed, and occasional naps. On phone so this won't be pretty but...

Book 1
book 1 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EtX_CNC7-1CCIaTu_s9jCY2lcZchQfd9/view?usp=drivesdk)

Book 2
book 2 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EKPMddq1mBbMTgsDI_QQmX5yIdjgH4cY/view?usp=drivesdk)

Android app apk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O9w_mNCorlYxNTCyYk__O_0AVBmQb6nu/view?usp=drivesdk

Stand alone files, all in book pdfs but separate here

Character sheet
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-53iwYa-q0kwo8oUeoR7zqoXivv6Zncz/view?usp=drivesdk

Spelljammer web page
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kr-tCzxHuaf8wKvG2CFMSc9kTyPSNSZ4/view?usp=drivesdk

Vehicle builder
vehicle builder html web page (https://drive.google.com/file/d/16WhZC_CBdZ-tswpaUAsMMaR7_QTqtQ1f/view?usp=drivesdk)

% calculator web page
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfE2VxOW9t6Qz4PWABXQ2Cyvgl2VvLQs/view?usp=drivesdk

% calculator pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-5MlbX-Ql1NqNVeeMJJDs_pIi_-G7ajl/view?usp=drivesdk

Dice roller web page
dice roller html web page (https://drive.google.com/file/d/16-fuH29YgSnT5vnTsHO7724QBf_uF8YM/view?usp=drivesdk)

Dice roller pdf

fixed dice roller pdf (uses forms) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/15eHs3pLZ_M6HHLCikBVGoFWyBkoeCP_q/view?usp=drivesdk)

Space mishap roller web page
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OP1ZuwtlLMZT9syqHbadtY7ppGl8qJU9/view?usp=drivesdk

Space mishap roller pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Cb1h2AKhIBkPvoKf-9H5DmLzvW1fIFm/view?usp=drivesdk

Daemon & hero generator web page
https://drive.google.com/file/d/145zv6s67iLpazjQIPjBkIcMrnwoaZWUl/view?usp=drivesdk

Daemon & hero generator pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/145F2iiIerhd-lu7DPdcsZc9gjD4ZhFPX/view?usp=drivesdk

Warp perils roller web page
perils of the warp web page html (https://drive.google.com/file/d/15bHgWhZPwVBReLmKuTbPQmjOCq7PPopn/view?usp=drivesdk)

Warp perils roller pdf
warp roller pdf (more forms) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/15pddqWmznqevvEoyviyGh_xx9goSu8Wr/view?usp=drivesdk)

Combined rollers pdf

compiled rollers & rand generation pdf (forms again) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/15tqWgPK5qIdGaDvMF63XItt1LfuXE38n/view?usp=drivesdk)
helper pages pdf (ya forms) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/16RAHiuurn3OqsmfrkDSYUhcFxoVqUxgk/view?usp=drivesdk)

Additional vehicles doc
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QXyeIapS609p1Dz8lQyWOs-eLcgHJI1u/view?usp=drivesdk

Testing & validation tools html web page (https://drive.google.com/file/d/16eUgLV5GZaX1KI6luDZPGYBKk0SQJ1sN/view?usp=drivesdk)

[Lord Torath]

I got "Access Denied" errors on the following links:

Spelljammer Web Page
Calculator pdf
Dice roller pdf
Space mishap roller pdf
Daemon & hero generator web page
Daemon & hero generator pdf
Warp perils roller pdf

[Telok]

I got "Access Denied" errors on the following links

Thanks. Should be fixed now.