Nosferatu and Wlekin template

[Alzrius]

Not to mention that, at very high levels, one runs out of anything to put on their weapons and armor besides divine abilities (and cosmics, etc). It comes to a point where equipment essentially becomes nothing but divine abilities predicated on having the equipment in one's possession.

I think that's only because we never saw the Immortal's Handbook Grimoire. Had U_K put out his planned book of immortal-level magic items and artifacts (which we sort of got a mini-preview of, thanks to the ones in the Bestiary), we'd likely think of artifacts as more than just extensions for additional divine abilities.

 

[Belzamus]

I think that's only because we never saw the Immortal's Handbook Grimoire. Had U_K put out his planned book of immortal-level magic items and artifacts (which we sort of got a mini-preview of, thanks to the ones in the Bestiary), we'd likely think of artifacts as more than just extensions for additional divine abilities.

Alas.

But, then, I'm sure it would all have been very complicated.

Even still, though, with the mutability of abilities, it's hard to see a way you couldn't convert any existing artifact's ability into a divine (or higher) ability, even if it took some work.

And this is all very off-topic, I'm sorry.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Mr Satan dude!

Simplicity is not the key to good design.

I disagree. The KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle is one of the fundamentals of good design.

In fact, the best designs are more often than not the most complex ones. All anyone needs to do to realize this is to look at the majority of museum art pieces. Nearly all of them are possessed of a complexity that would boggle the lesser mind, yet still captivate it with their beauty.

You might be confusing art with design.

Abilities in templates hardly become obsolete. Unless, of course, they are outpaced by similar, yet superior, abilities from overlapping templates. While they may see little use in COMBAT (more MMORPG thinking I'm seeing), they have a myriad of applicable uses in NON-combat scenarios (which is more for ROLE-playing than the ROLL-playing that is seen in 4E games).

What 4E recognised is that boiling a monster down to a handful of core, signature (if you will) powers works better than giving all monsters numerous feats and spell-like abilities; most of which never see use. Not only is this better in practice. To some extent it also causes designers to think more about monster powers.

Artifact limitations...I never did like that concept. It made very little sense to tie in equipment with a creature's challenge rating. Equipment can be lost or destroyed, even mimicked or replicated. Equipment is something anyone can acquire. It makes as much sense to limit artifacts as it does to add a Death Star (clearly a technological artifact) as a modifier to an individual's challenge rating. It's equipment and little more. Sure...it's symbolic equipment...but so was that +1 longsword your character got from his grandfather.

I'm sorry but you can't have your cake and eat it. You can't have infinitely scaling items freely available. Either you need a system similar to 1E/2E where items themselves have a power cap, OR you need some sort of metagaming limitation on the items you can possess (as per 3E).

In my games I've found it best to simply award all divinities with extra divine ability slots equal to 1/3 their ECL and allow them to acquire artifacts separately. Artifacts are already limited enough by their difficult, expensive, and time consuming creation processes. So much so that it's unlikely for any given deity to even bother creating them and more likely that they will just steal them from existing deities that have them or encounter them as treasure.

Artifacts (as they stand) in 3E are simply magic items. Thus there are no consequences to stealing them/possessing them.

However, what I tried to allude in the Bestiary/Ascension was that artifacts were intelligent and wouldn't want to be seen as 'another cheap trinket'. You don't want a situation whereby you are saying "Stormbringer you just stay in the portable hole; Mjolnir is much more useful against these giants".

4E handles this well having artifacts disappear if they don't see eye to eye with their (current) 'owners'.

Final note...

Simplicity typically seems best to those that are prone to laziness or procrastination or simply lack the time or attention span to do anything that requires more thorough deliberation. Simplicity is highly overrated and more often than not is simply someone cutting corners or seeking the easy way out. It has it's time and place and it doesn't belong in game design unless you're playing some variation of tic-tac-toe.

Not meaning to offend, but it has been proven time and time again.

No offence taken, perhaps its my procrastination and short attention span that values this new approach then.

However, that said, I don't ever recall a monster I designed for 3E where the focus was on its feats or spell-like abilities/spell-lists. Those things were a borderline irrelevance in 3E, or worse, actually got in the way - slowing the design process yet giving little or nothing back in return.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Belzamus mate!

On simplicity versus detail... I think my 10-page First One write-ups speak to my stance on that. Then again, I design for my own pleasure, not for running in a game. (Hence me having no use for 4E whatsoever) It's the details that are important to me. Sure it might not come up in combat, but I'll be damned if Ysrahl doesn't have the ability to compel someone to speak the truth, etc.

The beauty of 4E is that if you need some magical effect for story purposes you can just add it, typically through rituals.

 

[Belzamus]

I assume "ritual" is just a name for a type of ability, rather than description of how they work? Because, having a First One (to continue the example) need to go through some of kind process (i.e. require some kind of conscious input of effort beyond simply willing something to happen) just to compel the truth out of someone, doesn't really seem palatable to me.

And, really, though, the principle is more or less the same in any addition. You could theoretically add as many "story" powers to a creature as you wanted without increasing its CR, as long as they didn't impact combat in any significant way.

I'm sure 4E is fun to play (and design with), but for my purposes it's just not needed. I have a perfectly good system (yes, some people do love your 3.5 work, believe it or not. ) which I've molded to suit my needs even better, and I have a very large portion of my campaign setting statted up using said system, which describes their capabilities very well, to the point where I can play out fights from the stories I write and have the outcome be almost identical.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there Belzamus dude!

I assume "ritual" is just a name for a type of ability, rather than description of how they work? Because, having a First One (to continue the example) need to go through some of kind process (i.e. require some kind of conscious input of effort beyond simply willing something to happen) just to compel the truth out of someone, doesn't really seem palatable to me.

Didn't catch the name reference - I thought you were talking about some run of the mill bad guy.

And, really, though, the principle is more or less the same in any addition. You could theoretically add as many "story" powers to a creature as you wanted without increasing its CR, as long as they didn't impact combat in any significant way.

Precisely.

I'm sure 4E is fun to play (and design with), but for my purposes it's just not needed. I have a perfectly good system (yes, some people do love your 3.5 work, believe it or not. ) which I've molded to suit my needs even better, and I have a very large portion of my campaign setting statted up using said system, which describes their capabilities very well, to the point where I can play out fights from the stories I write and have the outcome be almost identical.

The main thing is that you are having fun amigo.

 

[Belzamus]

U_K, one more question if you don't mind.

Is it safe to assume that once you release the Vampire Bestiary, we'll be able to approximate these templates for 3E more in line with how yourself would have done them? (I assume that's why you're hesitant to provide examples of powers, too.)

Speaking of, do you have a price in mind for the VB yet?

 

[eduar]

hi

i watched hellsing and hellsing ultimate

Alucard is considered a welkin?

but how rate the ECL for new abilities?

because new abilities can be good for a setting but for others is just broken

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

U_K, one more question if you don't mind.

Actually you made two questions.

Is it safe to assume that once you release the Vampire Bestiary, we'll be able to approximate these templates for 3E more in line with how yourself would have done them?

Yes and no. Firstly, the Nosferatu will be in Volume 2 (since they are Level 21+). Secondly, there are about 7-8 different Nosferatu subtypes in the Nosferatu entry.

(I assume that's why you're hesitant to provide examples of powers, too.)

I haven't provided examples of Nosferatu and Welkin powers (3E) because I hadn't really worked any out beyond a few basic ideas jotted down.

I could post up the full 4E "basic" Nosferatu now, since stupidly I had dozens of entries completed for monsters that won't actually show up until Volumes 2 and 3.

So most of the Nosferatu section (of Volume 2) is finished. As is most of the Disir section of Volume 3. As well as a large section on the Asuras giants that'll will show up hopefully in a later book.

Speaking of, do you have a price in mind for the VB yet?

Since Ascension I have always priced things the same based on page count. Of course the fact that I have released nothing since Ascension means that's somewhat irrelevant.

First 50 pages = 15 cents/page. So 50 pages = $7.50
Second 50 pages = 10 cents/page. So 100 pages = $12.50
Third 50 pages = 5 cents/page. So 150 pages = £15.00

Of course I only count pages of actual content towards that, not contents pages and so forth.

The Vampire Bestiary looks like its going to be 88 pages (I made a mistake last week and realised I had 86 pages and not 84, so I had to add another 2 pages of content). So thats probably about 82-84 pages of actual material. Suggesting a price in around $10.70 to $10.90, but I will likely reduce that to at least $10.50, maybe even $10.00 (although the exchange rate is horrible at the moment so $10.50 is probably the more likely).

Its too early to know what the Print version from RPGnow will cost.

Technically I have the pdf layout with colour stat blocks (similar to the MM3 stat-blocks). But of course the interior illustrations will be all black and white, so those stat-blocks will be greyscaled in the print version. Totally off the top of my head I'd guess the print version will be about $20-25.

I haven't seen the quality of them yet. Has anyone ordered a print on demand book from RPGNow over the past 6 months? Alzrius?

 

[Belzamus]

Cool, thanks for the info.

I'll probably be getting the PDF version, since 1.) my hard copy of the Bestiary fell apart from overuse and 2.) I don't have to climb out of bed to check on entry in a pdf.

Can't wait, though.