Recent content by Mustrum_Ridcully

The Federation is still one of the places with the most advanced technology in the area, and home to lot of rich planets. The mines purpose might be to basically force the Federation (or its member worlds) to negotiate trade deals, technology transfers in exchange for them still being allowed...

Basically, it seems they are hoping for one of three things: 1) They develop the holy grail in AI research, some actual sapient (super) intelligence. I wouldn't count on that happening soon. 2) They develop AI for specific use cases where it just beats out the traditional way and be more...

I don't quite agree. The thing is - is the PrC just for optimizing your character beyond reasonable limits? Meh. Don't stretch yourself too far to accomondate that. While power-gaming can be fun, a lot of it is only fun thinking it out, but in play, it gets boring fast and your player might...

I don't need opinionated games, though that could be fun. But I prefer if a game has a play style it wants to provide and then actually lives up to that, instead of accidentally turning your romance and intrigue story into murderhobo dungeon runs - or the other way around! That can be very...

A system with classes seems to automatically come with some abilities only being character options, not system options. But even there, you can obviously have some "system options" like maybe everyone can attempt to disarm a foe or push someone away. The example of 3E with system options that...

I am not even sure it's a burnout, or just "new shiny". I experience that as a player, too, wanting to play a different character because I have found some new interesting character concept or powergaming fantasy or whatever, and so one character gets retired. And such retired characters can...

That is probably very sensible, but some might feel the urge to have a city that is useable as main adventure place for level 1-20. But that might just be asking too much from a single city. This is probably an issue a game like Shadowrun can avoid - the characters just don't "level" in a way...

What are "core NPCs" for you? Important characters in the city? NPC stats can be important to get some guidlines on how the players can fit in the world. If your major NPCs are mostly CR 15+ stats that is quite different frm them being CR5. In the latter, a level 10 adventuring party might...

Draw Steel! does this - you have 3 possible results, I don't remember the exact terminology, but you can get either a weak, average, or good result. Even a poor result deals some "damage", because someone coming at you with a weapon might miss, but you needed to expend some effort to deflect...

1d4 -> 1d3 (1d6 / 2) -> 1d2 (coin or 1d4/2 or 1d6/3) -> 1d1 (e.g. minimum 1 point). I think since armor doesn't negate all damage, no skill needs to circumvent armor, unless there is a special class ability priced in as some armor-defeating ability. But that would be the same as any ability...

The advantage of basically adjusting the weapon die step by step is that it solves the issue that low damage attacks can be negated by other forms of DR. But since it's not a fixed value, you still roll some damage, this problem is avoided. (for that; I'd definitely set some lower bound, it...

Though a wee map could make a nice visualization tool. Bu there are of course also challenges, where does it fit in the layout, how large does it have to be to be readable/fillable, especially given the shape of the wards... On the challenges of making a city work as adventuring place: I...

Amusingly, I remember a concept of a golfcart of weapons in 3E. You needed a Silver weapon to deal with enemies that had DR/Silver, and cold iron weaons for enemies that had DR/cold iron. And it was also a good idea to carry some Admantine weapon so you have an enhancement bonus against DR/+1...

That's why I thought why it was a good potential match for d20, that you only pick the better characteristic. I think my only worry would be that it might still be too straightforward (take Strong for full BAB and Smart for full skill points. The Tough hit points just aren't as valuable as the...

One thing I am considering for 2d10 or 2d6 roll systems: If you get the same number twice, it's considered some kind of crit. Whatever that would mean, exactly, remains to be decided. (Of course, that still means the highest number is the best, obviously, but you might get a more spectacular...