Corrections to Monsters in the CC
Cleon
Legend
Okay, the theoretical maximum range of radio communication is proportional to the square-root of the power of the transmitter.
The range of radar detection is proportional to the fourth-root of transmitter power (i.e. the square-root of the square-root), since the radio pulse must travel to the target, bounce off, and then travel the same distance back (assuming transmitter and receiver are at the same location, which'll be the case since both are built into the robot).
There are other limiting factors - the size of the dish, quality of pathway, line-of-sight, horizon, et cetera which'll likely reduce the radarsight range still further.
So the radarsight range should be some fraction of the square-root of the radiospeech range (assuming they both use the same signal power). That might be a bit too complicated if it requires the DM to pull out a calculator to figure out if an enemy's radiospeech can "hear" the radar. Especially since the droid could presumably lower its radar power to shorten its range. Some kind of ratio might be more in order, like the radarsight has a range of X feet per Y miles of radiospeech range.
Maybe 30 feet for every 10 miles? Then if we give the robots 20 mile, 50 mile and 100 mile radiospeech, their radarsight would be 60 feet, and 150 feet and 300 feet. That's the distance at which it can clearly distinguish shapes, it could probably detect the presence of a large object out to considerably larger distances, say a maximum of, say, one-twentieth the radiospeech range? So one mile, 2½ miles and 5 miles.
Guardian Droid & Luxury Valet Droid: radarsight 150 ft. [max 2½ mile, detectable 50 miles], radiospeech 50 miles
Servitor Droid: radiospeech 20 miles [if it had radarsight it'd be "radarsight 60 ft. [max 1 mile, detectable 20 miles]"]
Valet Droid: radiospeech 20 miles
Warrior Droid: radarsight 300 ft. [max 5 mile, detectable 100 miles], radiospeech 100 miles
I also propose the following tweaks to the Special Qualities:
Radarsight (Ex): This droid possesses sophisticated microwave radar, allowing it to "see" the shape of objects and creatures. Radarsight ignores concealment caused by darkness, fog or clouds. Invisibility provides total concealment against radarsight, although the droid may still make Spot checks to notice the location of an invisible opponent. Rain has the same effect on radarsight as it does normal vision. Unlike radiospeech, normal radarsight requires line of sight and cannot extend "over the horizon".
Radarsight cannot discern colors and any object or texture smaller than a quarter of an inch will just be a foggy blur. The listed range is the maximum distance radarsight can clearly distinguish shapes. It can detect the presence of objects at longer ranges - out to a maximum of one mile for every 60 ft. of range for extremely big objects such as hills and titanic buildings or creatures - but can't identify their shapes. So it might register the presence of a mountain giant a few thousand feet away with an appropriate Spot skill check, but it couldn't tell the Colossal moving object has a humanoid shape.
A creature using radarsight stands out to radarsight or radiospeech like someone walking around in the dark while shouting and waving a bullseye lantern about. They are detectable out to a maximum distance of 10 miles for every 30 ft. of radarsight range, but this distance is reduced by the same factors that can interfere with radiospeech. A Spot check is still necessary for a radio-sensitive creature to notice a radarsight source, but it has a +10 circumstance bonus.
Radiospeech (Ex): A creature with this ability can broadcast a radio communication with a radius up to the listed range (the creature can use less than its maximum range if it wishes to). All creature with radiospeech that are within range hears the communication, so it is possible to address many creatures at once using radiospeech, although maintaining a conversation with more than one creature at a time is as difficult as speaking with multiple people simultaneously. Radiospeech relies on words, so two creatures must understand the same language to communicate by radiospeech. Some items can listen to or broadcast radiospeech, allowing creatures without this ability to participate in radiospeech conversations.
Radiospeech cannot penetrate 10 feet of stone or wood, three feet of water, or an inch of metal. Intervening objects and radio noise can interfere with the radio signal and reduce the range by a factor of two to twenty or more depending on how bad the interference is. Electrically conducting objects provide the worst interference. If the creature is inside a building or is surrounded by construction or metalwork their radiospeech range will be divided by a factor of at least fifty. Rainfall and terrain that's mountainous or lightly forested will likely halve the radiospeech range.
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Cleon
Legend
Hmm… I'm strongly tempted to whip up a Variant Servitor Droids subentry that includes a radarsight model.
Let's see, I could do a "Laborer" model for heavy lifting with high strength, ones with weaponisable tools (drills, saws, cutting claws, arcwelders?), ones with alternative or additional motive systems (tracks, jetpacks or electromagnetic levitation?).
I'm talking myself into doing it, aren't I!
Cleon
Legend
I actually first joined in 2005, but then my account got lost in one of the site crashes or hacks a few months later. But I didn't get involved in the CC until my second account.
The tweaks to radarsight and radarspeech are fine. And I can also go for this:
Updating In Progress…
Droid, Guardian [also see "Laser Security Tank"]
Droid, Servitor
Droid, Valet
Droid, Warrior (Standard & Heavy)
…Update Process Completed.
During the update I added a " Variant Guardian Droid - Laser Security Tank" entry to the Guardian Droid and gave said LST's radarsenses four times the range of a basic guardian droid (since it is a Medium-based Gargantua with a ×4 area modifier). A house-sized droid likely has more powerful radio transmitters and bigger receivers than a man-sized one.
Cleon
Legend
Cleon
Legend
I have a quibble to raise with the Creature Catalogue's Gigantes conversions: that name is PLURAL, the singular is Gigas, not "Gigante" as appears three times in the CC entry.
Now "Gigante" is the singular in modern Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (the Italian plural is "Giganti", although Portuguese/Spanish plural is still "Gigantes") which might account for the 2E AD&D Legends & Lore (1990), which refers to "Gigante" and "gigante", but it's definitely "Gigas" in Ancient Greek.
In any case, the CC entry has multiple uses of "Gigantes" as a singular which is flat-out wrong.
Would there be any objection to me editing the entry so all the singulars are "Gigas"?
The CC entry has inconsistent capitalization with four "Gigantes" partway through sentences that should be changed to "gigantes". Those appear to be a copy-and-paste artifact from the CC's Giant, Enceladus entry. I could sort that out while singularizing the gigas.
Come to think of it, Enceladus's entry is the only place the names of the Gigantes appear - shouldn't that be in the main intro text instead? The CC entry implies there's an entire race of gigantes and not just six, plus Greek myth mentions a lot more than six gigantes by name. Also, shouldn't the entry allow for additional giants that don't appear in Greek myth like our CC version of the Titans?
Oh, and technically neither Uranus or Gaea are Olympian Gods - they're both Primordial Deities who aren't residents of Mount Olympus.
Hmm… perhaps we could use "Gigantes" as the collective name of the original giants and "gigantes" for the non-classical version?
Currently I'd go for editing in the following:
…
Incidentally, Hecatoncheires is also plural and was usually a collective reference to all three of the Hundred-Handed Ones. However, it appears to be acceptable modern practive to use it as a singular (i.e. "Aegaeon the Hecatoncheires") although the singular form would probably be "Hecatoncheir". At least I think that's what it'd be - it's all Greek to me!
Also, the plural of Cyclops is Cyclopes as used in the 1E AD&D version of Deities & Demigods (1980) aka Legends & Lore (1985), the 2E AD&D Legends & Lore (1990) only uses the plural form, while its Monstrous Manual "Giant, Cyclops" page uses the plural and singular correctly as does the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia (1991) and 3E D&D sources such as WotC's Deities and Demigods (2002) and Shining South (2004). Note that the 2E MM entry is mostly about the 7½ foot Cyclopskin not the 20 foot Cyclops Giant, the latter appears to be equivalent to the "Mythological" Lesser Cyclopes.
Now "Gigante" is the singular in modern Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (the Italian plural is "Giganti", although Portuguese/Spanish plural is still "Gigantes") which might account for the 2E AD&D Legends & Lore (1990), which refers to "Gigante" and "gigante", but it's definitely "Gigas" in Ancient Greek.
In any case, the CC entry has multiple uses of "Gigantes" as a singular which is flat-out wrong.
Would there be any objection to me editing the entry so all the singulars are "Gigas"?
The CC entry has inconsistent capitalization with four "Gigantes" partway through sentences that should be changed to "gigantes". Those appear to be a copy-and-paste artifact from the CC's Giant, Enceladus entry. I could sort that out while singularizing the gigas.
Come to think of it, Enceladus's entry is the only place the names of the Gigantes appear - shouldn't that be in the main intro text instead? The CC entry implies there's an entire race of gigantes and not just six, plus Greek myth mentions a lot more than six gigantes by name. Also, shouldn't the entry allow for additional giants that don't appear in Greek myth like our CC version of the Titans?
Oh, and technically neither Uranus or Gaea are Olympian Gods - they're both Primordial Deities who aren't residents of Mount Olympus.
Hmm… perhaps we could use "Gigantes" as the collective name of the original giants and "gigantes" for the non-classical version?
Currently I'd go for editing in the following:
The gigantes (singular gigas) are a race of legendary giants, the offspring of the primordial earth goddess Gaea and the sky god Uranus. According to myth, the blood of Uranus fertilized Gaea when their son Cronus the Titan castrated his father and usurped the throne. Known gigantes include Agrius, Alcyoneus, Athos, Clytias, Echion, Enceladus, Ephialtes, Eurytus, Clytius, Gration, Hippolytus, Mimas, Pallas, Polybotes, Porphyrion and Thoas. Gaea also bore giant children with other fathers, such as Antaeus the son of Poseidon. In turn, these gigantes may have gigas descendants unmentioned in mythology.
The gigantes ultimately warred with the Olympian gods in an epic battle called the Gigantomachy, but lost to the more powerful and younger gods. As a result, most surviving gigantes hate the Olympians, and will fight against them again if given the chance.
…
Antaeus is a gigas son of Mother Gaia, goddess of the earth, and the Olympian sea god Poseidon.
…
The enormous, malformed Enceladus (Enkelados) is one of the Gigantes, a race of giants born from the primal deities Uranus and Gaea. During the Gigantomachy, Zeus defeated Enceladus with his thunderbolts, and Athena buried him under a mountain.
Incidentally, Hecatoncheires is also plural and was usually a collective reference to all three of the Hundred-Handed Ones. However, it appears to be acceptable modern practive to use it as a singular (i.e. "Aegaeon the Hecatoncheires") although the singular form would probably be "Hecatoncheir". At least I think that's what it'd be - it's all Greek to me!
Also, the plural of Cyclops is Cyclopes as used in the 1E AD&D version of Deities & Demigods (1980) aka Legends & Lore (1985), the 2E AD&D Legends & Lore (1990) only uses the plural form, while its Monstrous Manual "Giant, Cyclops" page uses the plural and singular correctly as does the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia (1991) and 3E D&D sources such as WotC's Deities and Demigods (2002) and Shining South (2004). Note that the 2E MM entry is mostly about the 7½ foot Cyclopskin not the 20 foot Cyclops Giant, the latter appears to be equivalent to the "Mythological" Lesser Cyclopes.
Cleon
Legend
Hmm, I'd like to distinguish the generic gigantis and the Gigantis sons of Uranus.
Revision #1:
The gigantes (singular gigas) are a race of legendary giants, the offspring of the primordial earth goddess Gaea and the sky god Uranus. According to myth, the blood of Uranus fertilized Gaea when their son Cronus the Titan castrated his father and usurped the throne. Known gigantes include Agrius, Alcyoneus, Athos, Clytias, Echion, Enceladus, Ephialtes, Eurytus, Clytius, Gration, Hippolytus, Mimas, Pallas, Polybotes, Porphyrion and Thoas. Only a gigas sired by Uranus properly belongs to the "Gigantes" race, but Gaea also had gigas children with other fathers, such as Antaeus the son of Poseidon. Any of these gigantes might have descendants unmentioned in mythology.
The Gigantes ultimately warred with the Olympian gods in an epic battle called the Gigantomachy, but lost to the more powerful and younger gods. As a result, most surviving gigantes hate the Olympians, and will fight against them again if given the chance.
…
Antaeus is a gigas son of Mother Gaia, goddess of the earth, and the Olympian sea god Poseidon. Not being a child of Uranus means he is not a "proper" Gigantes.
…
The enormous, malformed Enceladus (Enkelados) is one of the Gigantes, a race of giants born from the primal deities Uranus and Gaea. During the Gigantomachy, Zeus defeated Enceladus with his thunderbolts, and Athena buried him under a mountain.
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