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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: [Let's Read] Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6

    Quote Originally Posted by lightningcat View Post
    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.

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

    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.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: [Let's Read] Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6

    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?
    Last edited by Telok; 2020-06-01 at 12:44 AM. Reason: Spelling

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: [Let's Read] Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6

    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.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: [Let's Read] Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th ed. v1.6

    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.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    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.

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

    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.

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

    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?
    Spoiler: Sidetrack
    Show
    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by KatsOfLoathing View Post
    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    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?

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

    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.

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

    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.
    Last edited by QuadraticGish; 2020-06-16 at 06:36 PM.
    My posting may be slowed due to new job.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by QuadraticGish View Post
    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    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.

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    I don't see why not.
    My posting may be slowed due to new job.

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

    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?

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

    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.

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

    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.

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