[d20 Future] War of the Worlds (History of the Wars, More Martian Tech added 10/1)

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Martian Invader: CR 9; Large aberration (extraterrestrial); HD 8d8+11; hp 47; Mas 13; Init +2; Spd 20 ft.; Defense 21, touch 11, flat-footed 19 (–1 size, +2 Dex, +10 natural); BAB +6; Grap +15; Atk +11 melee (1d4+6, tentacle); Full Atk +11 melee (1d4+6, 8 tentacles) and +5 melee (1d8+3, bite); FS 10 ft. by 10 ft.; Reach 20 ft.; SA Improved grab, constrict; SQ Low-light vision, fast healing 5; AL Martians; SV Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +7; AP 0; Rep +0; Str 22, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 3.
Skills: Hide +6, Knowledge (technology) +3, Spot +12.
Feats: Alertness, Planetary Adaptation (high-G), Toughness.
Advancement: By character class.

Woah! That's quite powerful. IMO, it needs two changes, however.

1) Mars has low gravity, so you need to change that feat.

2) If you give it fewer Hit Dice (but make the average Martial Invader still have 8 Hit Dice) that gives it more class flexibility and more skill points, too! For instance, this guy can't pilot a mecha! He needs two more feats for that. (You can just make those free, of course.)

But picture this guy with 5 levels of Mecha Jockey instead of 5 (relatively weaker) Hit Dice!

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Thanks so much for sharing.

Welcome. Seems quite a few people here are doing Sliders type games.

When I first started writing it up, it was just an exercise in Modern/Future mechanics. But now, as I write more, I'm seriously contemplating running a game set in these times someday.

1) Mars has low gravity, so you need to change that feat.

My lack of (or, rather, convenient forgetting of) knowledge strikes again. Just the other day, I forgot that they would have had tanks in 1938...

2) If you give it fewer Hit Dice (but make the average Martial Invader still have 8 Hit Dice) that gives it more class flexibility and more skill points, too! For instance, this guy can't pilot a mecha! He needs two more feats for that. (You can just make those free, of course.)

But picture this guy with 5 levels of Mecha Jockey instead of 5 (relatively weaker) Hit Dice!

True, good point. I'll have to work through the other Martian types as well, as they have some of the same errors (High/Low Gravity).

And that once again delves into what is always my pitfall when it comes to creating things as a DM... I'm too reluctant to break the rules.

And thanks for the comments, what better way to fix these things than to get some constructive criticism/observations, eh?

As someone might have deduced from the Martian Overlord entry and its reference to Vulthoom, I'm going to eventually drag in Clark Ashton Smith's tales set on Mars.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Martian Overlord (Charismatic Ordinary 3): CR 7; Medium monstrous humanoid (extraterrestrial); HD 2d8+3d6; hp 26; Mas 10; Init +5; Spd 20 ft., 40 ft. fly (poor); Defense 16, touch 11, flat-footed 15 (+1 Dex, +5 natural); BAB +1; Grap +1; Atk +1 melee (1d4, 8 tentacles); Full Atk +1 melee (1d4, 8 tentacles); FS 5 ft. by 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; SA Psionics; SQ Darkvision 60 ft., damage reduction 5/-, fast healing 5, power resistance 2; AL Martians; SV Fort +0, Ref +4, Will +4; AP 5; Rep +2; Str 11, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12.
Skills: Bluff +9, Diplomacy +9, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (earth and life sciences) +5, Knowledge (tactics) +8, Knowledge (theology and philosophy) +3, Search 8, Spot +9.
Feats: Frightful Presence, Improved Initiative, Toughness.
Advancement: By character class.

Another note; any time a creature takes a Modern class, it uses the heroic attributes (15 14 13 12 10 8, modified by racial modifiers... these guys probably need more Int).

They should have occupations; I guess Religious is best, but Military works well (so they can take Knowledge (tactics) as a class skill). And before you ask, it's perfectly legal for monsters that aren't available as player character races to take occupations.

PS the invaders probably need higher Con. Going from Medium to Large gives you +8 Strength and +4 Con; if these guys were medium they would have Strength 14 and Con 9... putting them into the negatives.

 

[Gospog]

Love this thread!

Just wanted to share what I'm doing with it, as my notes for next game are shaping up nicely.
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As I stated before, my heroes are on Mars, in the early 1900's. To get back to thier own time and Earth, they need the help of Nikola Tesla.

Unfortunately, he has been captured by the Martians while testing one of his new inventions.

The PCs are loaned another of his amazing inventions: crude mechs. They pilot the mechs to a where the Martians are holding Tesla (reportedly).

And then they're all killed. Martian tripods spring out of ambush and kill all of the PCs.

Then all the PCs find themselves heading towards the Martian base again. This time, they know about the ambush, and can fight thier way past. Until more tripods and several flying machines show up and wipe the players out again.

The heroes find themselves heading towards the Martian HQ again. This time, they know even more than the last time, and can fight and/or avoid most Martian attacks.

This goes on for a few encounters, but they eventually get to Tesla, hopefully confused as to what is really going on.

Turns out that Tesla's new invention bends time and (to a lesser extent) space. But it requires a massive gravity source to work. The Martians captured him and brought him to thier launching point for the invasion of Earth. They have created a massive artificial gravity well that they are using to launch invasion rockets at Earth. When Tesla's machine was brought into proximity of the gravity well, the temporal distortions began.

Tesla will help the heroes return "home" if they help him shut down the Martians' invasion plans.

After the (red) dust settles, Tesla affixes his temporal engine to an Aether ship (on loan from the Royal Navy, of course). The heroes can then sail this ship around the sun, it's massive gravity triggering the engine and sending them home.

They think.
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So thanks to all who have posted. You're inspired me again!

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

That's a nice idea there, I like it. Glad to hear other peole are getting use out of this, too. Any feedback you can offer, having used these things in combat? Any mechanics need fine-tuning?

 

[Bretbo]

Nice work! Are you planing on including elements from the syndicated show...like the fact that the Martians get around the germ weakness by inhabiting human bodies?

Keep up the great work!

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I honestly haven't seen a lot of the show. I vaguely remember one or two episodes, that's it. What'll be different about the Martians is that at least some of them are highly psionic, which the book/movie ones weren't, and they have developed the ability to take over human bodies. Sort of. Though the motives are different.

The idea I'm taking on the germ thing is that the Martians learned from their mistakes. In the book's invasion (1902), they were defeated by germs. In 1938, they weren't, as they'd prepared for that problem by improving the tripods somewhat. The flying machines are resistant to the bomb, which defeated them in 1945. I'm also downplaying some of the "invincibility" of the machines in the movie, and going with the book's idea that it is possible (but tough) to take one down. Especially with WW2 technology.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I ran this material in my sliders/tangents game and the players absolutely loved it. They actually manged to repel the attack having had the knowledge from the novel, movie and radio-show. On top of wich though, a group of martians managed to raid a military complex that was experimenting with holo-imaging technology, so now the martians are able to pass themselves off as humans. One of the martians planted a tracer on one of the heroes and the final battle ended up being like the fight between the two Arturos in Sliders. On top of which the martians now have the ability to travel between dimensions and may become as much as a menace or worse than the Kromaggs. Heh heh, I can't wait to use this material again. Thanks for posting this awesome stuff!